African Philosophy, Second Edition: Myth and Reality

4 Philosophy and its revolutions

4 Philosophy and its revolutions* I should like to demonstrate three things: First, that philosophy is not a system but a history, essentially an open process, a restless, unfinished quest, not closed knowledge; second, that this history does not move forward by continuous evolution but by leaps and bounds, by successive revolutions, and consequently follows not a linear path but what one might call a dialectical one - in other words, that its profile is not continuous but discontinuous; third, after this rough sketch of a theory of theoretical development, of a theory of theoretical history, of a theory of philosophy seen as a discontinuous theoretical history, that African philosophy may today be going through its first decisive mutation, the outcome of which depends on us alone, on the courage and lucidity we show in bringing it to its conclusion. Philosophy as history First, then, philosophy is a history, not a system. I do not consider here the word 'system' in its weak sense of 'methodical knowledge'. Ifwe took it in that sense, it is obvious that philosophy would indeed be a system, simply meaning that one does not philosophize without some method and prior knowledge, that philosophy requires a rather special conceptual ability on the part of the practitioner, that there is a terminology, a vocabulary, a conceptual apparatus bequeathed by philosophical tradition which we can never do without but must, on the contrary, use with profit if we want to be authentic philosophers. It goes without saying that philosophical reflection in this sense inevitably includes a systematic aspect, which • Revised and enlarged version of a lecture given at Lubumbashi on 2 June 1973 on the occasion of the 'Joumees philosophiques' of the province of Shaba, organized by the Department of Philosophy at the National University of Zaire. (See Cahiers phiJosophiques africains, Lubumbashi, nos. 3-4, pp. 27-40.)The lecture was also delivered in Nairobi on 6 November 1973, under the auspices of the Philosophical Association of Kenya. 72 Arguments is both methodical and constantly related to an existing theoretical tradition which may either confirm or confute it, and that no philosophers can evade the rigours of this discipline if they really want to philosophize and not just (in Plato's words) 'tell stories'.1 In this sense it seems obvious to me that African philosophers, like any others, need have no qualms about philosophizing, methodically and rigorously, in and through the conceptual heritage labelled 'philosophy'. African physicists are not generally ashamed to use the concepts which are proper to their discipline. Likewise, the African philosophers must not shirk the technicalities of philosophical language. We shall never create an authentic African philosophy, a genuine philosophy, genuinely African (that's what I mean by the term 'authentic'), if we skirt round the existing philosophical tradition. It is not by skirting round, and still less by ignoring, the international philosophical heritage that we shall really philosophize, but by absorbing it in order to transcend it. In this sense, but only in this sense, it seems to me evident that philosophy, whether we like it or not, is a system involving a special method of inquiry. But in another sense, the strong sense of the word 'system' - that is to say, a set of propositions regarded as definitive, a set of ultimate truths, the be-all and end-all of all thought - philosophy is not a system. For philosophy never stops; its very existence lies in the to and fro of free discussion, without which there is no philosophy . It is not a closed system but a history, a debate that goes on from generation to generation, in which every thinker, every author, engages in total responsibility: I know that I am responsible for what I say, for the theories I put forward. I am 'responsible' for them in the literal sense of the word, because I must always be prepared to 'answer' for them; I must be ready to justify them, to attest to their validity. It is as an individual that I take part in this debate, and in doing so I take part in the gradual unveiling of a truth that is not mine but everyone's, the outcome of the confrontation of all individual thoughts which constitutes an unending collective search. The contention that philosophy is a history and not a system means, among other things, that no philosophical doctrine can be regarded as the Truth. It follows in a sense that there is no absolute truth in...