Socrates and Orunmila in Conversation

Abstract

The debate on the non-philosophical and non-scientific character of classical African intellectual tradition has spread for so long and become a dominant locus. In the context of the multicultural relations that currently map and shape the contours of human identity, it is now fashionable to appraise cultures and identities not in isolation or with reference to uniqueness but in terms of confluent epistemologies, mutual and inter-related intellectual historical identities. This trend toward networking global intellectual history is laudable, as globality narratives on knowledge production fundamentally entail harmony, shared lifeworld, humanity imaginaries and essences as core moral- epistemological values. Against this background, this article engages in an intercultural analysis of Orunmila in classical Yorùbá-African thought, and Socrates in classical Greek thought, to discover the areas of Afro-European thought confluence in the philosophies of these two historic figures. Consequently, this article uncovers the historical and textual evidence in the oral literature of the Yorùbá that validates the ancient philosophical thoughts of Orunmila as no less sophisticated vis-à-vis that of Socrates in ancient Greek philosophy. This article argues that the classical philosophies of both Socrates and Orunmila are mutually sympathetic with fundamental lessons for developing contemporary intellectual canons of intercultural philosophy.