Paulin Hountondji 1942 – 2024
Paulin Jidenu Hountondji was a Beninese philosopher and a leading critic of what he called ethnophilosophy, the projection of collective worldviews onto the discipline of philosophy. After studies in Paris under Althusser and Derrida, he returned to Africa and produced African Philosophy: Myth and Reality, which argued that authentic African philosophy must be the work of identifiable African philosophers writing critically on real philosophical questions. His later work on endogenous knowledge addressed the place of African scientific and intellectual production within global circuits of research. He served as a minister in the government of Benin and as president of the Inter-African Council for Philosophy.
Key facts
- Nationality
- Beninese
- Era
- Contemporary
- Movements
- Postcolonial Philosophy
Selected quotes
-
Attributed to Paulin Hountondji:
“African philosophy is the philosophy produced by Africans, not the philosophy that Westerners have imagined Africans to hold.”
-
Attributed to Paulin Hountondji:
“Ethnophilosophy projects collective worldviews onto a discipline that is, by nature, individual and critical.”
-
Attributed to Paulin Hountondji:
“There is no philosophy without philosophers.”
-
Attributed to Paulin Hountondji:
“Endogenous knowledge must be recovered as living thought, not as folklore.”
-
Attributed to Paulin Hountondji:
“Knowledge produced in the periphery has too often been extracted as raw material for the center.”