Subject: Philosophy Book Title: African Philosophy
African Philosophy
New and Traditional Perspectives
Brown, Lee M.
(Editor), Professor of Philosophy, Howard University
Print publication date: 2004
Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: February 2006
Print ISBN-13: 978-0-19-511440-9
doi:10.1093/019511440X.001.0001
Abstract:
This book features a collection of essays that seek to provide accurate and well-developed characterizations of the epistemological and metaphysical concerns that shaped the conceptual languages and philosophical thought of sub-Saharan Africa. A common theme between the essays is that a word shared by different cultures can have different extensions while being taken to have the same sense. It is argued that the ability to appreciate or understand the conceptual languages of others is influenced by the extent to which this content is viewed from the perspectives of the native users of the language. Among the topics covered by the essays are conceptions of the person, truth, destiny, personal identity, and metaphysics.