The Invention of a Philosophy: Postcolonialism in the Context of Akan Proverbs

21 Pages·2015·4.74 MB·English

by  Kumbalonah, Abobo

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CULTURA
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL
OF PHILOSOPHY OF CULTURE
CULTURA AND AXIOLOGY
Founded in 2004, Cultura. International Journal of Philosophy of
2015
2015 Vol XII No 1
Culture and Axiology is a semiannual peer-reviewed journal devo- 1
ted to philosophy of culture and the study of value. It aims to pro-
mote the exploration of different values and cultural phenomena in
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OG
regional and international contexts. The editorial board encourages Y O
HL
the submission of manuscripts based on original research that are PO
OXI
judged to make a novel and important contribution to understan- LOSD A
ding the values and cultural phenomena in the contempo rary world. HIN
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ISBN 978-3-631-66651-7
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CULTURA 2015_266651_VOL_12_No1_GR_A5Br.indd 1 01.06.15 KW 23 13:21
A
R
U
T
L
U
C
CULTURA
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL
OF PHILOSOPHY OF CULTURE
CULTURA AND AXIOLOGY
Founded in 2004, Cultura. International Journal of Philosophy of
2015
2015 Vol XII No 1
Culture and Axiology is a semiannual peer-reviewed journal devo- 1
ted to philosophy of culture and the study of value. It aims to pro-
mote the exploration of different values and cultural phenomena in
FY
OG
regional and international contexts. The editorial board encourages Y O
HL
the submission of manuscripts based on original research that are PO
OXI
judged to make a novel and important contribution to understan- LOSD A
ding the values and cultural phenomena in the contempor ary world. HIN
A
OF PRE
U
L T
AL
NU
RC
U
O
J
L
A
N
O
TI
A
N
R
E
T
N
I
www.peterlang.com
CULTURA 2015_266651_VOL_12_No1_GR_A5Br.indd 1 01.06.15 KW 23 13:21
CULTURA
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF
PHILOSOPHY OF CULTURE AND AXIOLOGY
Cultura. International Journal of Philosophy of Culture and Axiology
E-ISSN (Online): 2065-5002
ISSN (Print): 1584-1057
Advisory Board
Prof. Dr. David Altman, Instituto de Ciencia Política, Universidad Catolica de Chile, Chile
Prof. Emeritus Dr. Horst Baier, University of Konstanz, Germany
Prof. Dr. David Cornberg, University Ming Chuan, Taiwan
Prof. Dr. Paul Cruysberghs, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium
Prof. Dr. Nic Gianan, University of the Philippines Los Baños, Philippines
Prof. Dr. Marco Ivaldo, Department of Philosophy “A. Aliotta”, University of Naples “Federico II”, Italy
Prof. Dr. Michael Jennings, Princeton University, USA
Prof. Dr. Maximiliano E. Korstanje, University of Palermo, Argentina
Prof. Dr. Richard L. Lanigan, Southern Illinois University, USA
Prof. Dr. Christian Lazzeri, Université Paris Ouest Nanterre La Défense, France
Prof. Dr. Massimo Leone, University of Torino, Italy
Prof. Dr. Asunción López-Varela Azcárate, Complutense University, Madrid, Spain
Prof. Dr. Christian Möckel, Humboldt University of Berlin, Germany
Prof. Dr. Devendra Nath Tiwari, Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi, India
Prof. Dr. José María Paz Gago, University of Coruña, Spain
Prof. Dr. Mario Perniola, University of Rome “Tor Vergata”, Italy
Prof. Dr. Traian D. Stănciulescu, Alexandru Ioan Cuza University Iassy, Romania
Prof. Dr. Steven Tötösy de Zepetnek, Purdue University & Ghent University
Editorial Board
Editor-in-Chief: Co-Editors:
Prof. dr. Nicolae Râmbu Prof. dr. Aldo Marroni
Faculty of Philosophy and Social- Dipartimento di Lettere, Arti e Scienze Sociali
Political Sciences Università degli Studi G. d’Annunzio
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[email protected] PD Dr. Till Kinzel
Executive Editor: Englisches Seminar
Dr. Simona Mitroiu Technische Universität Braunschweig,
Human Sciences Research Department Bienroder Weg 80,
Alexandru Ioan Cuza University 38106 Braunschweig, Germany
Lascar Catargi, nr. 54, 700107 Iasi, Romania [email protected]
[email protected]
Editorial Assistant: Dr. Marius Sidoriuc
Designer: Aritia Poenaru
Cultura
International Journal of Philosophy
of Culture and Axiology
Vol. 12, No. 1 (2015)
Editor-in-Chief
Nicolae Râmbu
Guest Editors:
I-Chun Wang and Asun López-Varela
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Umschlagabbildung: © Aritia Poenaru
ISSN 2065-5002
ISBN 978-3-631-66651-7 (Print)
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DOI 10.3726/978-3-653-05998-4
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CONTENTS

ALLEGORIES OF IMPERIALISM: BARBARIANS AND
WORLD CULTURES

I-Chun Wang & Asun López-Varela 7
Allegories of Imperialism: Barbarians and World Cultures

David Lea 17
Sovereignty, Linguistic Imperialism and the Quantification of
Reality

Abobo Kumbalonah 31
The Invention of a Philosophy: Postcolonialism in the Context of
Akan Proverbs

Antonia Peroikou 45
Speaking (of) the Unspoken: Exploring the Mystery behind Friday’s
Severed Tongue in Coetzee’s Foe

Temisanren Ebijuwa &Adeniyi Sulaiman Gbadegesin 57
Mediating Ethnic Identities: Reaching Consensus through Dialogue
in an African Society

Shiuhhuah Serena Chou 71
Claiming the Sacred: Indigenous Knowledge, Spiritual Ecology, and
the Emergence of Eco-cosmopolitanism

Stephen Joyce 85
The Fearful Merging of Self and Other: Intra-civilizational and
Inter-civilizational Colonial Cultures in Richard E. Kim’s Lost
Names
Oxana Karnaukhova 99
Tracing the Roots of Colonial History and Orientology in Russia

Michaela Keck 115
Culture-Crossing in Madison Smartt Bell’s Haitian Trilogy and
Neo-Captivity Narrative

Mary Theis 129
Ideal Isolation for the Greater Good: The Hazards of Postcolonial
Freedom

Maximiliano Korstanje 145
Constructing the Other by Means of Hospitality: the Case of
Argentina

Liudmila Baeva & Anna Romanova 159
Challenges to Frontier Allegories: the Caspian Sea Region in
Southern Russia

Soon-ok Myong & Byong-soon Chun 173
Cultural Politics of Otherizing Hijabed Muslims in Kazakhstan

Nurlykhan Aljanova & Karlygash Borbassova 18(cid:26)
Etiquette Rules and Intercultural Relations in Kazakh Society after
Independence from the Soviet Union

Jinghua Guo 197
The Multi-dimensional Model of Cross-Cultural Interpretation as
an Anti-centralist Tool in World Literature Perspectives

Huiyong Wu 211
The Impact of Confucianism on Chinese Representations of
Japanese Imperialism as well as on International Relations

Simon C. Estok 221
Bull and Barbarity, Feeding the World
10.5840/cultura20151213
Cultura. International Journal of Philosophy of Culture and Axiology 12(1)/2015: 31–43
The Invention of a Philosophy: Postcolonialism in the
Context of Akan Proverbs
Abobo Kumbalonah
School of Interdisciplinary Arts
Ohio University, Athens, USA
[email protected]
Abstract. This essay situates the debate on the philosophy of indigenous thought
systems within the context of postcolonial theory. I argue that postcolonialism is a
reinvention of preexisting indigenous philosophy. Beginning from the late 1960s
into the early 1970s a seemingly new wave of thinking was theorized by scholars as
postcolonialism. Today, its popularity is evident in the many academic fields that
have adopted and adapted it as an instrument of scholarly inquiry. In this essay, I
argue, using Akan proverbs, that postcolonialism is not a new philosophy.
Keywords: postcolonialism, indigenous African philosophy, Akan proverbs, oral
tradition
INTRODUCTION
There is no doubt that the field of philosophy in most academic institu-
tions in the West is nothing more than a showcase of the “high” thinking
capacity of contemporary Western (and to some degree Eastern) people
and their forbearers. This has persisted due, in part, to white-privileging
standardization of formal education by which Western norms have been
propagated as the universal standard for the gradation of human
knowledge. Consequently, Western-originated philosophy is acknowl-
edged as the norm. To talk, for example, about African philosophy
comes out as talking about something which does not exist. This has
been the position of some of the most diligent gatekeepers of Western
philosophy.
One such scholar is Robin Horton (1977) who asserts that no system
of thought representing the collective worldview of a community can be
considered philosophy. Referring to Africa, he explains that indigenous
thinking is usually a static “single, over-arching worldview which reigns
without competition” (Horton, 1977: 65). Even when people find the
need to adjust them to reflect new situations, such changes only affect
what is internal to the thought frame; the external structure remains
31
Abobo Kumbalonah/ The Invention of a Philosophy

fixed and unchangeable. Consequently, though African indigenous
thought may use philosophical methods of reasoning, “such processes
are deployed in an essentially unreflective manner” (Horton, 1977: 65)
since they endorse a single communal worldview. To Horton, this can-
not allow for the development of logic and thus philosophy. Horton’s
other critique of African philosophy is that since it expresses a single
worldview, it is impossible for one to fully appreciate his/her existence
in relation to the wider world. The result is a rich proliferation of magical
reasoning – “thinking dominated by the idea of the creative power of
speech vis-a-vis the world, and by the assumption of an indissoluble bond
between words and their referents” (Horton, 1977: 65).
Horton concludes that traditional thinking cannot develop epistemol-
ogy because of its inability to interrogate the relationship between lan-
guage and reality. For this reason, though African oral tradition may be
replete with wisely constructed sayings, there can be no philosophy in-
digenous to Africa.
Horton’s argument seems to have gained the support of Kwasi
Wiredu (1992) who contends that African oral philosophy does not “de-
velop sustained and readily accessible speculative thought such as you
have in Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason” (Wiredu, 1992: 36). Furthermore,
he thinks it lacks “elaborate and architectural systematizations of thought
forms, such as you get in Russell and Whitehead’s Principia Mathematica
(Wiredu, 1992: 36). His other claim is that such philosophical mediums
do not permit “dialectic[s] of diverging schools of thought” (Wiredu,
1992: 36) because they are based on a fixed oral tradition. Finally, he
suggests again that non-written quasi philosophy varies from the reason-
ing pattern of the (Western) scripted model which is based on assertion,
explanation and justification. The problem I find with Wiredu’s critique
is his attempt to draw parallels between two fundamentally dissimilar
philosophical traditions. It appears his method is to hold up Western
philosophy as the standard and then assess African orality by it.
On the point of orality as a weakness in Africa’s way of thinking,
Ngugi wa Thiong’o (2012) insists that the lower esteem given to speech
is a recent development in Western philosophy, as Plato, Aristotle, and
Socrates favored it over the written (Thiong’o, 2012: 83). By far, the
most comprehensive response to both Horton and Wiredu has come
from Kwame Gyekye (1987) who argues that if pre-Socratic Greek
thought and post-Renaissance Western thinking remain central to mod-
32