At African Studies Association (A. S. A.) meetings of November 1989, V. Y. Mudimbe's The Invention of Africa: Philosophy, Gnosis and Order of Knowledge won prestigious Melville J. Herskovits award. Mudimbe's book is a landmark achievement, developing a critique of Africanist discourse in spirit of Edward Said's Orientalism by posing as its central problem the foundations of discourse about Africa.' Its publication revitalized what is currently recognized as African humanities, and it is within this fertile and polemical field of inquiry that questions of African philosophy, vernacular strategies, and constructed identities converge. The debate I wish to examine developed at a panel session at same A. S. A. meetings organized on Mudimbe's book. The participants included leading figures in field-Kwame Anthony Appiah, Abiola Irele, Jonathan Ngate, Paulin Hountondji, and Valentin Mudimbe himself. All offered perspectives on Mudimbe's work-with author