Humanism in Africa - Indigenous Foundations, Muslim Humanism In North Africa, "modern" African Humanism, Secular Humanism In Africa
christianity redemption consequently earth
A common misconception of African humanism is that it is a set of values brought into, instead of emerging from, communities on the African continent. This prejudice is due primarily to
the influence of modern European humanism, which is premised upon a secular naturalism as the only model of humanism. The modern European humanist tradition, which treats Christianity as the model of all religion, is critical of Christianity because it claims that Christianity discourages human beings from focusing on the value of human action on Earth beyond concerns for redemption from original sin in an afterlife. If we define humanism as a value system that places priority on the welfare, worth, and dignity of human beings, we should also consider those traditions in which human beings do not seek redemption in an afterlife because, for them, punishment or redemption exists only on Earth. Consequently, their tendency is to place great weight on human action and human subjects. The focus on earthly actions is a key feature of many African religions and, consequently, African humanism.
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Despite the presence of many indigenous ethnic groups in Africa, there is much similarity in the cosmologies that ground their religious practices, especially those of people south of the Sahara. A major reason for this commonality is that many of them are descended from a set of communities along the ancient lakes and plains of the Sahara-Sahelian region of northern Africa that subsequently dried…
Ibn Rushd (1126–1198), known by his Latin name Averroës, was a North African philosopher whose work came to prominence in Cordoba, Spain. He was a pioneer in African Muslim thought, and his influence includes commentaries on Aristotle that affected European scholasticism and the struggles to transform it. Rushd argued for the secularization of political life and the dominance of reason…
Beyond the indigenous models of humanism there has arisen what may be called modern African humanism, which emerged from African responses to conquest, colonization, and the various slave trades along the African coasts. These forms usually involve engagements with Christian, liberal, and republican (domination-free) values, or with values that emerged as a result of engagement with various Muslim…
In the twentieth century, a form of secular humanism emerged in Africa primarily through the efforts of the Senegalese intellectuals Cheikh Anta Diop (1923–1986) and Léopold Sédar Senghor (1906–2001). Diop advocated a strong historicist humanism that focused on the achievements of ancient Africans as the first Homo sapiens, arguing that they laid the groundwork for the cult…
The last quarter of the twentieth century was marked by the emergence of African academic intellectuals as chief spokespersons for secular African humanism. Many of these writers present their case from the disciplinary perspectives of philosophy, political theory, and political economy (especially as critics of development studies), and many of them, save, for example, Kwame Gyekye (Ghana), Manga…
Comaroff, John, and Jean Comaroff. Of Revelation and Revolution. 2 vols. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997. ——. "On Personhood: An Anthropological Perspective from Africa." Social Identities 7, no. 2 (2001): 267–283. Eze, Emmanuel Chukwudi, ed. African Philosophy: An Anthology. Oxford: Blackwell, 1998. Gyekye, Kwame. An Essay on African Philosophical Tho…
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