Questões de Concurso

The claim to reason or rationality is the ultimate validation of the affirmation and assertion of the human condition. Aristotle’s definition of man as "a rational animal" was not spoken of the African and the Amerindian. Little did he realise that his definition of "man" laid down the foundation for the struggle for reason between colonialists and colonized peoples.

Aristotle’s definition of man was deeply inscribed in the social ethos of those communities and societies which undertook the so-called voyages of discovery apparently driven by innocent curiosity. It seems then that the entire process of decolonisation has upheld and not jettisoned the questionable belief that "man is a rational animal" was not spoken of the African and of the Amerindian.

The term African philosophy renders the idea that history repeats itself easy to believe. The term tends to revive innate skepticism on the one hand and to stimulate ingrained condescension on the other. The skeptic, unswervingly committed to the will to remain ignorant, is simply dismissive of any possibility let alone the probability of African philosophy. Impelled by the will to dominate, the condescendor is often ready to entertain the probability of African philosophy provided the judgement pertaining to the experience, knowledge and truth about African philosophy is recognised as the sole and exclusive right of the condescendor. The self-appointed heirs to the right to reason have thus established themselves as the producers of all knowledge and the only holders of the truth.

Mogobe B. Ramose. African philosophy through Ubuntu.

Harare, Zimbabwe: Mond Books Publishers,2005, pp.5-6 (adapted).