Marcien Towa 1931 – 2014
Marcien Towa was a Cameroonian philosopher and one of the sharpest African critics of ethnophilosophy in the twentieth century. After studies in Paris and Geneva, he taught for decades at the University of Yaounde and produced his celebrated Essay on the Philosophical Problematic in Contemporary Africa and Leopold Sedar Senghor: Negritude or Servitude?, in which he argued that an authentic African philosophy must be a critical and questioning labor rather than a celebration of an idealized traditional past. His thought has shaped the agenda of Francophone African philosophy for half a century.
Key facts
- Nationality
- Cameroonian
- Era
- Contemporary
- Movements
- Postcolonial Philosophy
Selected quotes
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Attributed to Marcien Towa:
“Authentic African philosophy must be a critical labor, not a celebration of the past.”
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Attributed to Marcien Towa:
“To philosophize is to question, not to embalm.”
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Attributed to Marcien Towa:
“Ethnophilosophy turns African thought into a museum piece.”
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Attributed to Marcien Towa:
“Liberation requires the courage to think against one's own traditions where they harm.”
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Attributed to Marcien Towa:
“African modernity must be constructed, not received.”