Abstract
This paper dwells on the debate on the question of what is/are responsible for African underdevelopment and, by extension, what will influence African development. The debate currently dwells on how much of development is human and how much is environmental, extraneous and beyond human control. Joseph Agbakoba thinks that development involves both nature and human agency, acknowledges the effect of nature, equally sees philosophy as a critique of worldview and ideology, and African philosophy as saddled with the critique of the African worldview and ideology, which he sees as malfunctioning in the context of the modern African civic society imported from Europe and needs certain adjustments. In other words, he sees development in Africa as not beyond human control. J. Obi Oguejiofor attempts to refute Agbakoba’s claim that worldview has anything to do with the African predicament, and concludes that the African predicament is as a result of geography, biogeography and history, but his advancement of these factors as being solely responsible for the African predicament completely ignores the human agency in development and lands him in determinism raising the question of the very relevance of African philosophy to African development. Conceptual analysis informs the dominant method of the paper.
Highlights
In his article “Philosophy and Traditional African Ethics: The Problems of Economic Development”, Joseph C
The author explores the meaning of development and goes on to evaluate the views and perspectives that tend to argue against philosophy in its broadest sense occupying a distinct and significant role in development, in order to argue that philosophy has a very distinct and significant role to play in the process of development, even in its economic sense
In order to demonstrate this important point, the author explores what he considers the impact of the traditional African ethical outlook and values in relation to the economic activities and the process of economic development in contemporary Africa
Summary
Received August 13th, 2012; revised September 15th, 2012; accepted September 27th, 2012. Joseph Agbakoba thinks that development involves both nature and human agency, acknowledges the effect of nature, sees philosophy as a critique of worldview and ideology, and African philosophy as saddled with the critique of the African worldview and ideology, which he sees as malfunctioning in the context of the modern African civic society imported from Europe and needs certain adjustments. In other words, he sees development in Africa as not beyond human control.
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