África, modernidad, libertad

Abstract

The paper is focused on highlighting some choice samplings from modern European philosophical narratives of “emancipation” and showing how they frame Africa, and the world beyond Europe, into a subordinate position in need of “beneficent” conquest. The paper will argue that, to undo this frame the formerly colonized must articulate their own sense of history, in and through which they can enter our contemporary world on their own terms. It will argue this point by articulating what it takes to be a central concern of contemporary African philosophy, i.e., the systematic undermining of Western hegemonic narratives while—and concurrently—formulating a stance cognizant of the varied, incommensurable, historical and cultural actualities that are, and constitute, our shared human existence. The focus of the paper is thus to explore the possible, beyond the demise of colonialism, in the hope of catching-sight-of a truly postcolonial future.