African philosophy

African philosophy is the philosophical discourse produced in Africa or by indigenous Africans. African philosophers are found in the various academic fields of present philosophy, such as metaphysics, epistemology, moral philosophy, and political philosophy.^[1]

One particular subject that several modern African philosophers have written about is on the subject of freedom and what it means to be free or to experience wholeness.^[2]

The term "Africana philosophy" covers the philosophy made by thinkers of African descent and others whose work deals with the subject matter of the African diaspora.

Philosophy in Africa has a rich and varied history, some of which has been lost over time.^[3] Some of the world's oldest philosophical texts have been produced in Ancient Egypt, written in Hieratic and on papyrus, c. 2200–1000 BCE. One of the earliest known African philosophers was Ptahhotep, an ancient Egyptian philosopher.

In general, the ancient Greeks acknowledged their Egyptian forebears,^[1] and in the fifth century BCE, the philosopher Isocrates declared that the earliest Greek thinkers traveled to Egypt to seek knowledge; one of them Pythagoras of Samos, who "was first to bring to the Greeks all philosophy".^[4]

In the 21st century, research by Egyptologists has indicated that the word philosopher itself seems to stem from Egypt: "the founding Greek word philosophos, lover of wisdom, is itself a borrowing from and translation of the Egyptian concept mer-rekh (mr-rḫ) which literally means 'lover of wisdom,' or knowledge."^[4]

In the early and mid-twentieth century, anti-colonial movements had a tremendous effect on the development of a distinct modern African political philosophy that had resonance on both the continent and in the African diaspora. One well-known example of the economic philosophical works emerging from this period was the African socialist philosophy of Ujamaa propounded in Tanzania and other parts of Southeast Africa. These African political and economic philosophical developments also had a notable impact on the anti-colonial movements of many non-African peoples around the world.