African American Studies by Norment Nathaniel

Author:Norment, Nathaniel
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Peter Lang Publishing, Inc.
Published: 2019-03-20T00:00:00+00:00

Brief History of African American Philosophy

If we are to stipulate the existence of a system of thought known as philosophy, we must also be able to trace its intellectual history. Though it may take different forms, the intellectual history of African American philosophy must first acknowledge, however, that the nature of thought from which it emerges is found in Black people’s “folk culture.” This contention has been made by Paget Henry and ← 322 | 323 → others who have stated that to theorize an Africana philosophy, there must be an interrogation of the “African ego” and its place in the conceptual foreground of African American thinkers. Henry posits that the fundamental understanding of what has been called ethnophilosophy contextualizes the types of philosophical reflections that would characterize the individual philosophers. Many of the anthologies of African American philosophy have implicitly provided the initial steps to the articulation of this genealogy of individual thinkers. For instance, Leonard Harris’ Philosophy Born of Struggle as well as Percy Johnston’s Afro-American Philosophers links the reflection of thinkers such as David Walker and Jupiter Hammon to early instances of an African American philosophizing tradition. Much like mainstream philosophy, African American philosophy developed individual exemplars outside of the academy prior to the development of academic philosophy.

By the 1960s, with the advent of increased integration of the university, more African Americans had the opportunity for training in philosophy. Both part and parcel of the struggle for Civil Rights and Black Power and the resulting incorporation, philosophers attempted to develop answers to the overarching concerns of Black existence. These thinkers will be discussed within the context of a later section and include the philosophical thinking of the generations immediately following Alain Locke, DuBois, Holmes, and Fontaine, among others. They include Cornel West, Leonard Harris, Lucius T. Outlaw, Angela Davis, Tommy Lott, Naomi Zack, Joy James and Lewis Gordon. These thinkers attempted to map out their own trajectories within the development of an African American philosophy based upon the contributions of their predecessors. How and through what process race and culture and the overarching Western society in which these constructions manifest affect inequality and the quality of life of subaltern citizenry continues to concern philosophers of African descent in America. Though they differ in approach and the degree to which they foundationalize their philosophizing in alternative (or culturally specific) intellectual paradigms, these philosophers often are distinguished first by their commitment to understanding the African American experience.50

It is extremely important to point out that Lucius Outlaw’s definition of Africana philosophy is not the only one that seeks to connect the contribution of Africana philosophy to Africana Studies. In the early 1990s, Gordon (2003) claimed that African American existential philosophy is a branch of Africana and Black philosophies of existence. Africana philosophy refers to the philosophical currents that emerged out of the experience of Diasporic Africa. Black philosophy refers to the philosophical currents that emerged for the concept of Blackness. Black philosophy relates to a terrain that is broader than Africana communities because not all Black people are of African descent.

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