Kwame Gyekye, a Professor of Philosophy at the University of Ghana, is currently a Visiting Professor of Philosophy
and African American studies at Temple University. He is the author of numerous articles and books, including The
Unexamined Life: Philosophy and the African Experience.
Review
"I find [Gyekye's] work brilliant in its approach, in its ideas, and in its argument. He asks courageous
questions concerning the idea of an African philosophy and he not only succeeds in exposing the shallowness of
some skeptical claims regarding that question but also clarifies the lines along which answers might properly be
sought. . . . His work is the most massive in a new generation of thoughtful approaches to an important question
regarding human culture."
--W. E. Abraham, University of California at Santa Cruz, and author of The Mind of Africa
"The author builds an impressive case for an indigenous African philosophy which is different from but
not inferior to European philosophy. This text is valuable because [of its] insights into the relationship between
life and thought, philosophy and experience."
--James H. Evans, JR., Religious Studies Review
Temple University Press Web Site, February, 2001
Summary
In this sustained and nuanced attempt to define a genuinely African philosophy, Kwame Gyekye rejects the idea
that an African philosophy consists simply of the work of Africans writing on philosophy. It must, Gyekye argues,
arise from African thought itself, relate to the culture out of which it grows, and provide the possibility of
a continuation of a philosophy linked to culture. Offering a philosophical clarification and interpretation of
the concepts in the ontology, philosophical psychology, theology, and ethics of the Akan of Ghana, Gyekye argues
that critical analyses of specific traditional African modes of thought are necessary to develop a distinctively
African philosophy as well as cultural values in the modern world.
