Bacon and Descartes Epistemology and African Epistemic thought System

By Maduka Enyimba

There is a need for African Scholars to concentrate their efforts and thoughts in doing African philosophy by propagating and projecting the various shades of African thought. We believe that attention ought to be shifted from emphasizing western philosophy to emphasizing African philosophy both in teaching and in writing. This is because the existence of African philosophy is no longer a thing of question.  It is an established fact.

At most, what should be done is, at every given time any western philosopher and his/her ideas are being taught or discussed with the students or among professional philosophers effort should be geared towards showing its relevance to, significance for, or implication for African thought and vise versa. By so doing we believe that we will be moving away gradually and systematically from the crisis of relevance which faces Africans in almost every sphere of life, especially in the academics, to a situation of relevance and self-discovery. This will also foster considerably the contemporary movement towards decolonizing African thought.

It is in keeping with this that this concise book "Bacon and Descartes Epistemology and African Epistemic Thought System" came into being. It is an exercise in comparative philosophy as it compares Bacon and Descartes' Epistemological postulations and that of the Africans in order to see where there is a confluence (similarity) and where there is a disparity (difference) and of course the significance of Bacon and Descartes Epistemology in African thought.

There is a need for African Scholars to concentrate their efforts and thoughts in doing African philosophy by propagating and projecting the various shades of African thought. We believe that attention ought to be shifted from emphasizing western philosophy to emphasizing African philosophy both in teaching and in writing. This is because the existence of African philosophy is no longer a thing of question.  It is an established fact.

At most, what should be done is, at every given time any western philosopher and his/her ideas are being taught or discussed with the students or among professional philosophers effort should be geared towards showing its relevance to, significance for, or implication for African thought and vise versa. By so doing we believe that we will be moving away gradually and systematically from the crisis of relevance which faces Africans in almost every sphere of life, especially in the academics, to a situation of relevance and self-discovery. This will also foster considerably the contemporary movement towards decolonizing African thought.

It is in keeping with this that this concise book "Bacon and Descartes Epistemology and African Epistemic Thought System" came into being. It is an exercise in comparative philosophy as it compares Bacon and Descartes' Epistemological postulations and that of the Africans in order to see where there is a confluence (similarity) and where there is a disparity (difference) and of course the significance of Bacon and Descartes Epistemology in African thought.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookRix
• Release date: Nov 25, 2020
• ISBN: 9783748765684

Book preview

CHAPTER 0NE: INTRODUCTION

There is a need for African Scholars to concentrate their efforts and thoughts in doing African philosophy by propagating and projecting the various shades of African thought. We believe that attention ought to be shifted from emphasizing western philosophy to emphasizing African philosophy both in teaching and in writing. This is because the existence of African philosophy is no longer a thing of question.  It is an established fact.

At most, what should be done is, at every given time any western philosopher and his/her ideas are being taught or discussed with the students or among professional philosophers effort should be geared towards showing its relevance to, significance for, or implication for African thought and vise versa. By so doing we believe that we will be moving away gradually and systematically from the crisis of relevance that faces Africans in almost every sphere of life, especially in academics, to a situation of relevance and self-discovery. This will also foster considerably the contemporary movement towards decolonizing African thought.

It is in keeping with this that this concise book Bacon and Descartes Epistemology and African Epistemic Thought System came into being. It is an exercise in comparative philosophy as it compares Bacon and Descartes' Epistemological postulations and that of the Africans in order to see where there is a confluence (similarity) and where there is a disparity (difference) and of course the significance of Bacon and Descartes Epistemology in African thought.

It is shown that Fortes and Dieterlen, were correct to have stated that the mental processes of the Africans are not different from ours" (39). However, it was discovered and shown that there is a sense in which the African mode of knowing differs from the western model of knowing and hence peculiar in itself (from it). For instance, in western epistemology, we have compartmentalized schools of thought such as empiricism and rationalism among others, which hold sense experience and reason as the only source of genuine knowledge respectively. But in the African mode of knowing, the Africans combine sense experience, reason, and all other relevant criteria including the self into the knowing process. This is a holistic epistemic situation.

Thus, this work will serve as a veritable handbook for students and instructors in African studies generally and particularly in epistemology, African epistemology, comparative African philosophy, and modern philosophy.

One of the issues which have generated great controversy in the modern period of philosophy is the question of whom among Francis Bacon and Rene Descartes should best be described as the father of modern philosophy. We are concerned here with the epistemological thoughts of Francis Bacon and Rene Descartes in relation to the renaissance period and their relevance to the African Mode of Knowing. While Bacon proceeds empirically and experimentally using induction, Descartes proceeds rationally through intuition using logico-mathematical deduction.

It should be noted, however, that the two philosophers set out to reformulate or rather lay a new foundation