An African Origin of Philosophy: Myth or Reality?

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by Dr. Molefi Kete Asante

(First Published in City Press, July, 2004)

There is a common belief among whites that philosophy originates with the Greeks. The idea is so common that almost all of the books on philosophy start with the Greeks as if the Greeks pre-dated all other people when it came to discussion of concepts of beauty, art, numbers, sculpture, medicine of social organization. In fact, this dogma occupies the principal position in the academies of the Western world, including the universities and academies of Africa. It goes something like this:

Philosophy is the highest discipline.
All other disciplines are derived from philosophy.
Philosophy is the creation of the Greeks.
The Greeks are white,
Therefore, whites are the creators of philosophy.

In the view of this dogma, other people and cultures may contribute thoughts, like the Chinese, Confucius, but thoughts are not philosophy; only the Greeks can contribute philosophy. The African people may have religion and myths, but not philosophy, according to this reasoning. Thus, this notion privileges the Greeks as the originators of philosophy, the highest of the sciences.

There is a serious problem with this line of reasoning. The information is false. As far as scholarship can reveal the origin of the word philosophy is not in the Greek language, although it comes into English from the Greek. According to dictionaries on Greek etymology the origin of the word is unknown. But that is if you are looking for the origin in Europe. Most Europeans who write books on etymology do not consider Zulu, Xhosa, Yoruba, or Amharic, when coming to a conclusion about what is known or unknown. They never think that a term used by a European language may have come from Africa.

There are two parts to the word philosophy as it comes to us from the Greek, “Philo” meaning brother or lover and “Sophia” meaning wisdom or wise. Thus, a philosopher is called a “lover of wisdom.”

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Comments

[Va Boy]

Thank you, brother. Those who are arguing about African religion should read this. There is no reason why we cannot use African religion and philosophy in a very elevated way like the Europeans used Greece to create a Eurocentric system.

[Kamarad]

Thank you Prof!!!

[Chief Ayuk Arrey]

You've all written well. Even if Philosophy started in Africa or Africa has contributed to the world Philosophy of which it is a truth that's being covered up. The highest race that has suffered so much in the hands of Foreigners, how do you expect the west to say anything positive can came from Africa.
The Conspiracy that placed Africa to where it's today still lives on, And it's a very Powerful Theory. It has to take centuries for Africa to regain herself and her Prestige.
This will only occur when we have the right leaders to lead Africa out of this bondage.

[Mallam Shehu]

Africa is the cradle of all civilizations, nobody can ever distort that fact; many have tried to disprove this truism with the help of fake mummies from Europe and China, but all in vain.

Africa just needs to reboot its original self and drop out the acquired Eurocentric mentality and all will be fine.

Make no mistake, as it was in the beginning, so shall it be in the end. Africa shall rise again one day and humanity shall regain its true rhythm: humility, hospitality and hope.

[Dr A A Agbormbai]

"According to Herodotus, in Histories, Book II, the Colchians were Egyptians “because like the Egyptians they had black skin and wooly hair.” Aristotle says in Physiognomonica that “the Egyptians and Ethiopians are very black.”...

At a major 1974 conference sponsored by UNESCO on the “Peopling of Egypt” in Cairo, two blacks, Diop and Theophile Obenga, walked toward fear and when they had finished presenting their papers they had shattered all of the lies that were told about Africans. Using science, linguistics, anthropology, and history, these two intellectual giants demonstrated that the ancient Egyptians were black. They used a melanin test on the skin of a mummy, art from the walls of tombs, correspondences to other African languages, and the testimonies of the ancients."
__________________

This is the greatest and most revealing piece of writing that I have ever read about Africa and black Africans. It is so packed with convincing evidence and arguments that all my questions about the Ancient Egyptians have been cleared.

For decades I've been wondering why modern accounts of Ancient Egypt never mention the colour of their skin. I've always been wondering what sort of people they were. The whites never claimed them but never said anything either about their colour.

I can see from the excerpts above why Herodotus has been called the Father of Lies. He told it as it was, except that he put the black man where he belonged at the time - superior to the white man. What a contradiction to the modern racist view of the black man!

I can now understand why ancient accounts of Greek writers almost always found a place to mention Africa. I was always surprised by this, when I read the accounts.

When I was studying for my PhD at Imperial College (1984 - 1988), the demands of the problem I was solving necessitated that I go far back into Classics to understand the origin of knowledge and how it was constructed.

This is how I came to read some of the works of the Ancient Greeks.

The Egyptian civilisation pre-dated the Greek civilisation, so it is only natural that the ancient Greek philosophers would have had to learn from the Egyptians in order to build their own civilisation.

One thing that I learned very well from my PhD studies is that knowledge is not constructed out of a vacuum. It is constructed as a ladder of steps, stemming out of existing and previous knowledge.

The modern world of academics, as epitomised by Western civilisation, is a fraud! The West would like to have you believe that nothing pre-dated Greek civilisation. So we hear of Socrates and Homer, as though they were the first at what they did.

Another thing that shocked me while I was studying for my PhD was the ease with which modern academics trample on the achievements of past academic greats. This was nothing short of disgraceful and ungrateful.

What they forgot was that without the works of these past academic greats they would not be able to do their own work! They did as though they made their contributions out of a vacuum.

It was common to bash Aristotle, yet without this guy's works Western civilisation would be set back by thousands of years. There is certainly no European to whom the Western world owes as much as it does to Aristotle.

People tend to forget the 'flight of steps' nature of academic contributions - the fact that you need a previous contributor's works to be able to make your own contribution.

[limbekid]

We should stop being obsessed with what the West and the rest of the world thinks about Africa and Africans. The only reality is NOW. What have we done with all the knowledge we presumably disseminated to the rest of the world? We are behaving like the adult who is still boastful of their high school achievements. The real question is, what have you done since then?

[Louis Egbe Mbua]

Dr. Agbormbai,

Your observations are to the point. The original ancient Egyptians were Black Africans. The first Pharaoh, who united Lower and Upper Egypt and began the art of government, was a Black African. Nefertiti, the most celebrated Beauty in the world was a Black Africa woman, Tutankhamen, was a Black African Boy King,. Ikhnaton, his father, was Black African If you take a look at the paintings of early Egyptian peoples, how they evolved to great civilisation, the people are all Black Africans.

However, over the years, several other races from the Middle East -- Syria, Greeks, Romans, Turkey and the Arabs- conquered Egypt or migrated there in times of famine. This caused a mixture of the population over thousands of years (Why Cleopatra, an Egyptian Pharaoh of Greek descent was present -- she was the descendant of Ptolemy a Greek General). Why the colour of Egypt has changed, especially in the urban areas such as Cairo and Alexandria (founded by the Greeks who almost certainly settled there). But in the interior of Egypt of today, the Egyptians are still Black Africans.

As to who began Science, Philosophy, Economic theories, Maths, Architecture and organised Religion, writing, Art, The ancient Egyptian Black Africans were the pioneers. The Sumerians also developed independently. However their civilisation was not as advanced. While the Egyptians built with stones, the Sumerians built with mud.

While the Egyptians were at the Zenith of their power, Rome was a small hamlet on the banks of the River Tiber. Nobody knew anything about the Greeks in 2500 BC. There are no recorded facts about them. So, it must be assumed that they were yet to acquire knowledge and wisdom at about 500 BC -- a whooping 2000 years knowledge gap.

Civilisation was begun by Black Africans in Africa. At that time Europe was peopled by wild ignorant Barbarian tribes who knew little but violence and plunder, looting and burning down villages. These are recorded facts.
Having said that we give credit where it is due. The Europeans have come a long way after thousands of years of struggle. The problem is that their elite appear to “forget” where they acquired the knowledge in the first place – from Black Africans in Egypt.

[Ras Tuge]

The most cruel enemy of the African child is the stupid African parent that forced the poor and shackled child to clap and sing songs of praises to these jam dong Babylon liars. But in this our time, we shall write our history by ourselves.

[Chief Ayuk Arrey]

Why?
Because Paul Biya is a fool. He calls himself a leader yet he owns a clinic in Germany and other ill-gotten wealth in France, with efficiency more than all gov't own hospitals in Cameroon. Our families are dieing of little illments and our theatres are dilapidated with rusted equipments.