The invention of Africa

Gnosis, Philosophy, and the Order of Knowledge

Bibliographic Data

ID6568691
AuthorsV Y Mudimbe, V Mudimbe
Year1988
Pages241
Publication date1988-01-01
Open AccessNo
TypeBOOK
Reviewed byThe Invention of Africa: Gnosis, Philosophy, and the Order of Knowledge, Andrew Apter, 1991
Reviewed byThe Invention of Africa: Gnosis, Philosophy, and the Order of Knowledge, Christopher Gray, 1989
Reviewed byThe Invention of Africa: Gnosis, Philosophy and the Order of Knowledge, Ladislav Holy, 1989
VenueThe invention of Africa (SOURCE_BOOK)
PublisherIndiana University Press (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.2979/2080.0
ISBN9780253204684, 9780253331267
Open LibraryOL2408099M
LanguageEN
Citations received1,255

"What is the meaning of Africa and being an African? What is and what is not African philosophy? Is philosophy part of Africanism? These are the kinds of fundamental questions that this book addresses. V.Y. Mudimbe argues that the various discourses themselves establish the worlds of thought in which people conceive their identity. Western anthropology and missionaries have introduced distortions not only for outsiders but also for Africans trying to understand themselves. Mudimbe goes beyond the classic issues of African anthropology or history. He says that the book attempts an archeology of African gnosis as a system of knowledge in which major philosophical questions recently have arisen: first, concerning the form, the content, and the style of Africanizing knowledge; second, concerning the status of traditional systems of thought. He is directly concerned with the processes of transformation of different types of knowledge."--Book cover

Knowledge · 199/.6 · African · African Philosophy · Afrikaanse filosofie · B5310 .m84 1988 · Civilization · Négritude · Philosophie africaine · Philosophy · Philosophy, African · Théorie de la connaissance · Theory of knowledge · Wetenschap