Benue State University, Makurdi

Ethnophilosophy as the Foundation of African Philosophy and Pedagogy: A Reply to Bernard Matolino

Irabor, Benson Peter, Olufowobi, Oludare Okikiola, PhD and Quadri Ayodele Y.

Abstract

Recent scholarship has queried the place of ethnophilosophy in contemporary African scholarship. Apart from the criticisms that have greeted this trend in the history African scholarship, a more recent one has emerged. Bernard Matolino for instance has argued that ethnophilosophy is a dead end. Through the method of philosophical analysis, this study counters Matolino’s view as it expresses that rather than being a dead end, ethnophilosophy is the foundation for original African thinking. To make my case more clear that ethnophilosophy is the foundation of original African thinking, this research provides an instance via Julius Nyerere’s Ujamaa and its self-reliant philosophy of education which has the capacity to initiate a template for education development on the continent. On this showing, we submit that in spite of the barrage of criticisms, ethnophilosophy continues to emerge victorious disclosing its sub-structure upon which original African thinking thrives.

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