African Philosophy: The question of history

Abstract

This article examines the question of the history of African Philosophy. The questions addressed here are how old is African Philosophy? When and how did it really begin? When and where do we begin the writing of the history of African Philosophy? Is it in the ancient setting, or from the beginning of world civilization, or from Western civilization/Christian era in Africa? Do we really have a history of African Philosophy? It is in an attempt to resolves these and other related questions and problems, that I set out to write this paper. We show that the question of the history of African Philosophy is really an offshoot of the problem of definition, unwritten tradition and Schools of thought in African Philosophy. These problems, I argue, should not stop us from embarking on writing the history of African philosophy, by employing the most commonly employed sub-divisions in African history that is, the “pre- colonial’’,  “Colonial" and "post-colonial” periods of African Philosophy.