introduction - RACISM & NATIONAL CONSCIOUSNESS ...

THE INVENTION
OF AFRICA African Systems of Thought
General Editors
Charles S. Bird
Ivan Karp Contributing Editors
Thomas O. Beidelman
James Fernandez
Luc de Heusch
John Middleton
Roy Willis The Invention
of Africa
Gnosis, Philosophy, and the
Order of Knowledge V.Y.Mudimbe Indiana University Press
Bloomington and Indianapolis James Currey
London
© 1988 by V. Y. Mudimbe
All rights reserved No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by
any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and
recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without
permission in writing from the publisher. The Association of American
University Presses' Resolution on Permissions constitutes the only
exception to this prohibition. Manufactured in the United States of America
Library of Congress Cataioging-in-Publication Data
Mudimbe, V. Y., 1941-
The invention of Africa.
(African systems of thought)
Bibliography: p.
Includes index. I. Philosophy, African, 2. Knowledge, Theory of.
I. Title. II. Series. B53IO.M84 1988 199'.6 87-4532.4
ISBN 0-253-33126-9
ISBN 0-253-20468-2 (pbk.) 2 3 4 5 6 94 93 92 91 90
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Mudimbe, V. Y., 1941- The invention of Africa : gnosis, philosophy, and the order
of knowledge. - (African systems of thought).
1. African philosophy
I. Title II. Series
199'.6 ISBN 0-85255-203-3 (paper) To the Memory of James S. Coleman
Mors ipsa beatior inde est, quod per
cruciamina leti via panditur ardua iustis, et ad
astra doloribus itur.
Pridentius, Hymnus Circa Exequias
Defuncti
Contents Introduction IX I. Discourse of Power and Knowledge of Otherness 1
II. Question of Method 24
III. The Power of Speech 44
IV. E. W. Blyden's Legacy and Questions 98
V. The Patience of Philosophy 135
Conclusion: The Geography of a Discourse 187 Appendix, Ethiopian Sources of Knowledge 201
Bibliography 205
Index 233
INTRODUCTION This book evolved accidentally, as a result of an invitation to prepare a
survey of African philosophy. Strictly speaking, the notion of African
philosophy refers to contributions of Africans practicing philosophy within
the defined framework of the discipline and its historical tradition
(Horton, 1976; Hountondji, 1977). It is only metaphorically, or, at best,
from a historicist perspective, that one would extend the notion of
philosophy to African traditional systems of thought, considering them as
dynamic processes in which concrete experiences are integrated into an
order of concepts and discourses (Ladrière, 1979:14-15). 1 have thus
preferred to speak of African gnosis. J. Fabian used the notion of gnosis
in his analysis of a charismatic movement (1969). In this book, the wider
frame seems better suited to the range of problems addressed, all of which
are based on a preliminary question: to what extent can one speak of an
African knowledge, and in what sense? Etymologically, gnosis is related to
gnosko, which in the ancient Greek means "to know."
Specifically, gnosis means seeking to know, inquiry, methods of knowing,
investigation, and even acquaintance with someone. Often the word is used
in a more specialized sense, that of higher and esoteric knowledge, and
thus it refers to a structured, common, and conventional knowledge, but one
strictly under the control of specific procedures for its use as well as
Transmission. Gnosis is, consequently, different from doxa or opinion, and,
on the other hand, cannot be confused with episteme, understood as both
science and general intellectual configuration.
The title is thus a methodological tool: it embraces the question of what
is and what is not African philosophy and also orients the debate in
another direction by focusing on conditions of possibility of philosophy as
part of the larger body of knowledge on Africa called "Africanism." I use
this central notion of conditions of possibility in accordance with a
recent tradition in which Michel Foucault could, for example, define his
own intellectual ambition in terms of its dependence on alterations that
jean Hyppolite introduced into Hegelian philosophy (Foucault, 11982-:235-
37). What the notion of conditions of possibility indicates is that
discourses have not only sociohistorical origins but also epistemological
contexts. It is the latter which make them possible and which can also
account for them in an essential way.
I shall be dealing with discourses on African societies, cultures, and
peoples as signs of something else. I would like to interrogate their
modalities, significance, or strategies as a means of understanding the
type of knowledge which is being proposed. In fact, I do not address the
classical issues of African anthropology or history, the results of which
might or might
not mirror an objective African reality. Rather I am looking upstream of
the results, precisely at what makes them possible, before accepting them
as commentary on revelation, or restitution, of an African experience.
The book attempts, therefore, a sort of archaeology of African gnosis as
a system of knowledge in which major philosophical questions recently have
arisen: first, concerning the form, the content, and the style of
"Africanizing" knowledge; second, concerning the status of traditional
systems of thought and their possible relation to the normative genre of
knowledge. From the first chapters, which interrogate Western images of
Africa, through the chapters analyzing the power of anthropologists,
missionaries, and ideologists, to the last, on philosophy, I am directly
concerned with the processes of transformation of types of knowledge.
This orientation has two consequences: on the one hand, an apparent
attenuation of the originality of African contributions and, on the other,
an overemphasis upon external procedures, such as anthropological or
religious influences. The fact of the matter is that, until now, Western
interpreters as well as African analysts have been using categories and
conceptual systems which depend on a Western epistemological order. Even in
the most explicitly "Afrocentric" descriptions, models of analysis
explicitly or implicitly, knowingly or unknowingly, refer to the same
order. Does this mean that African Weltanschauungen and African traditional
systems of thought are unthinkable and cannot be made explicit within the
framework of their own rationality? My own claim is that thus far the ways
in which they have been evaluated and the means used to explain them relate
to theories and methods whose constraints, rules, and systems of operation
suppose a non-African epistemological locus. From this viewpoint the claim
of some African philosophers such as O. Bimwenyi (1981a) and E Eboussi-
Boulaga (1981) that they represent an epistemological hiatus should be
taken seriously. What does this mean for the field of African studies? To
what extent can their perspectives modify the fact of a silent dependence
on a Western episteme? Would it then be possible to renew the notion of
tradition from, let us say, a radical dispersion of African cultures?
These are the most important issues in the debate on African philosophy.
They oblige me to clarify immediately my position about representatives of
African gnosis. Who is speaking about it? Who has the right and the
credentials to produce it, describe it, comment upon it, or at least
present opinions about it? No one takes offense if an anthropologist is
questioned. But strangely enough, Africanists-and among them
anthropologists-have decided to separate the "real" African from the
westernized African and to rely strictly upon the first. Rejecting this
myth of the "man in the bush," J. Jahn chose to "turn to those Africans who
have their own opinion and who will determine the future of Africa: those,
in other words, of whom it is said that they are trying to revive the
African tradition" (Jahn, (1961:16). Yet, Jahn's decision seems
exaggerated. I would prefer a wider authority: intellectuals' discourses as
a critical library and, if I could, the experience of rejected
forms of wisdom which are not part of the structures of politica