Throwing Away the Ladder: How to Read African Philosophy

“My journey into African Philosophy was prompted by my training and experience in Western Philosophy. … I was taught, in the classroom of Western oriented African universities and textbooks that Africans never originated any cogent tradition of philosophy. My first Ph.D. proposal to the University of Ibadan in 1977 was rejected because the title The Rational Basis of Yoruba Ethical Thinking was declared a myth and not philosophy. I was forced to write on a Western (British) philosopher. At my doctoral graduation party in 1984, the then Head of Department of Philosophy at Ibadan congratulated me for my attainment of the license to talk all the nonsense I had been talking before. Since then, I have tried to strengthen my intellectual capacity to make the adversaries see the sense in what, by their own perceived standard, is absolute nonsense.” (Sophie Oluwole, “For Africans, Philosophy Is In Languages.”)