During Africa’s colonisation, the West brought foreign and irrelevant ideologies to the indigenous people. In many cases, the African was downgraded and equated with animals that are driven by instincts.
This culminated into a debate whether an African mind is capable of logical thinking. The debate went further to question whether Africans can seriously talk about having a philosophy of their own, which can be equated to those of Western philosophers like Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Locke, Kant, Dewey, to mention just a few. Western and African philosophers trained in the Western schools of philosophy claimed about the absence of an African philosophy (Wiredu, 1980). These white philosophers and their black disciples profess that there is nothing like African philosophy, because it is not documented. However, students of modern African Philosophy tend to distinguish seven trends which reflect the main concerns of African philosophers (Kaphagawani and Malherbe, 2002).
Cultural philosophy originated during the 1940s when Senegalese writers and thinkers like Leopold Sedar Senghor, Aime Cesaire and Cheik Anta Diop explored the mystery of African personality and culminated in the philosophy of Negritude. Its proponents glorified the ideas of dance, drama and music as they have found expression in African culture. This trend is still in evidence today but its followers are artists, writers and traditionalists (Njoronge and Bennaars, 1986; Kaphagawani and Malherbe, 2002).
Ethnophilosophy examines features of a culture like language and religious ceremonies, their philosophical systems and their epistemology. This trend had its origin in the numerous studies on African traditional societies undertaken by the early Western anthropologists like Placide Tempels (1959). Others like Jahn (1958) followed in his book; ‘Muntu: An Outline of Neo-African Culture’ and Kagame (1976) on ‘Bantu Philosophy of Being.’ This trend is no longer strong and its turning point is Mbiti’s book (1969), ‘African Religion and Philosophy’ (Njoronge and Bennaars, 1986; Kaphagawani and Malherbe, 2002).
Hermeneutic philosophy focuses on the analysis of African languages in order to find philosophical content. The dictionary defines hermeneutics in three ways: to make something clear, to explain something and to translate or interpret something.
Proponents of hermeneutics have concentrated on the understanding of texts, which is the written word (Higgs and Smith, 2006).
Since many linguistic groups in Namibia are not written, this philosophy may not be operational in its fullest.
Literary or artistic philosophy celebrates life through art. It further states that it is through the artist’s eye that our collective society has sought to open its heart and mind, its humanity, to the mysteries of life and to the differing views of our shared world.
Through this artistic tradition, mankind has come together in hopes of understanding our existence and lessening the isolation created by the complexities of our world and human nature. In narrative, a creator can embody, and readers be led to imagine unreal or fictional characters, and even fantastic creatures or technologies. The ability of the human mind to imagine, and even to experience compassion with these fictional characters is itself revealing about the nature of the human mind. (Kaphagawani and Malherbe, 2002). It is in this light that some philosophers have chosen various narrative forms to teach their philosophy which includes the literary works of figures like Ngugi wa Thiongo, Wole Soyinka, Chinua Achebe, Ali Mazrui, Joseph Diescho and other African writers.
Philosophic sagacity refers to individual thinkers and Oruka (1997) is the proponent of this philosophy. It is an individualist version of ethnophilosophy, in which one records the beliefs of certain special members of the community. The premise is that some members of a community reach a high level of knowledge and understanding of their cultures’ worldview and become sages. There are many prominent sages in many Namibian communities who are at the same time serve as the custodians of knowledge, hence libraries of the nation. But unfortunately, these sages are not given opportunity to relate some of the beliefs of the communities and nation. This follows a situation in which indigenous knowledge is not taken seriously in Namibia, as compared to other countries. The University of Namibia has of late embarked on the programme of researching indigenous knowledge, but funding seems to constraint the exercise.
Politico-ideological philosophy: The beginnings of this trend may be traced to the political writings of first African national leaders like Jomo Kenyatta, Kwame Nkrumah, Kenneth Kaunda, Julius Nyerere, Sekou Toure and many others. By the 1960s, this trend began to be influenced by philosophical writings of Fanon (1963), in his books, ‘The Wretched of the Earth and Black Skins, White Masks.’ Ernest Wamba dia Wamba, the Congolese philosopher, is one of the most outspoken advocates, critical and revolutionary thinker on African problems.
This school proposes a philosophy of action in support of the struggle against colonialism and imperialism (Njoronge and Bennaars, 1986; Kaphagawani and Malherbe, 2002). Namibian revolutionaries like the first president, Nujoma (2001) in his book, ‘Where Others Wavered’ contributed to this field of philosophy.
Professional philosophy studies the international epistemological literature and keeps abreast of the current academic debate on knowledge. Its proponents though critical of Western philosophy, accept Western terminology and methods.
These are young philosophers trained in Technical Philosophy and have the likes of Kwasi Wiredu of Ghana, Paulin Hountondji of Benin, Olu Sodipo of Nigeria, Elungu Pene Elungu of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Odera Oruka from Kenya (Njoronge and Bennaars, 1986; Kaphagawani and Malherbe, 2002).