Customer Reviews

Cultural Universals and Particulars: An African Perspective (African Systems of Thought)

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In this collection of essays, Wiredu makes and unpacks four interrelated claims. Along the way, he supplies numerous examples and proofs from Akan thought and in some of the middle chapters provides clear expositions of large elements of it. First, he asserts that there exist universally true ideas and concepts including in morality whose validity can be determined objectively. Second, he argues that the conflation of morality with custom makes morality appear to be culturally relative and demonstrates this conflation by Christian evangelicals in Africa. Third, he suggests that part of the legacy of this conflation is an often unwitting "colonial mentality" of African intellectuals who ponder, articulate and write about their cultures in foreign languages (i.e. English and French) and who use Western concepts to articulate African thought. Fourth, he suggests that Africans need to return to African traditional thought, which still informs the lives of ordinary Africans, to help resolve many of Africa's social and political lives. This is not an exclusive "return to the source," since modern developments may dictate modification of those traditions. In this vein, he is particuarly interested in Africans "domesticating" the natural and life sciences. He also includes an afterword that addresses some criticisms of the work.

There are many places where I disagree with Wiredu's argument or the manner of the argument. Though he pays lip service to the diversity of Christianity, he uses descriptions of it that flatten that diversity. I am also skeptical about his portrayal of the role of religion (by which he seems usually to mean Christianity) in the West. I am unsure about his stance on language. In some cases, he treats it as little more than an accidental collection of sounds and in others attaches great importance to the culturally-derived meanings of those sounds. Finally, he has a tendency to base his claims on definitions of concepts that could be rather controversial. For example, he claims Africans are not religious based largely on his definitions of religion and the supernatural. With a different, but reasonable, set of definitions much of his argument would not hold. Ultimately, this book engaged me about ideas and methods, which is precisely what a good work of philosophy should do.

Wiredu does a good job of outlining and unpacking his ideas and approaches. The work also hangs together remarkably well for a set of separately published essays. The book can be read without any background in philosophy or African thought. However, it is probably more engaging if you do have some background in those fields. I certainly found myself wishing I had read more on Akan thought.