Menkiti, Gyekye and beyond: towards a decolonization of African political philosophy

Abstract

With the revitalization of Aristotelianism in the West in almost fifty years or so, and the communitarianism that flows from Aristotle, Western and African philosophies, it seems, are converging. It is no wonder that there are good reasons to suspect that African philosophy can make an important and significant contribution to understanding the issues at stake in the debate between communitarianism and liberal individualism. The extent to which we will have to revise our ethical outlooks and our social and political theories to accommodate the insights drawn from African philosophy is the subject of intense debates. Many criticisms have emerged with regards to the nature of these debates. The first is on the question of content and the second on methodology. These are hotly contested debates in African political thought. In this collection of essays, we will be having a conversation from both sides of the debates, noticing how both content and methodology mirror and reproduce each other.