African Gnosis: Philosophy and the Order of Knowledge

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Periodical article

Title:	African Gnosis: Philosophy and the Order of Knowledge
Author:	Mudimbe, V.Y.
Year:	1985
Periodical:	African Studies Review
Volume:	28
Issue:	2-3
Period:	June-September
Pages:	149-233
Language:	English
Geographic term:	Africa
Subjects:	science philosophy epistemology Religion and Witchcraft
External link:	https://www.jstor.org/stable/524605
Abstract:	This essay attempts a sort of archaeology of African gnosis as a power-knowledge system in which major philosophical questions recently have risen: first, about the form, the content and the style of 'Africanizing' knowledge; second, about the status of traditional systems of thought and their possible relation with the first genre of knowledge. From the first part of the essay through the second part in which the power of anthropologist and missionary is analyzed, to the last on philosophy, the author is directly concerned with processes of transformation of types of knowledge. Sections: missionary's discourse and Africa's conversion - Ethiopian sources of knowledge - J.-P. Sartre as an African philosopher - Marx africanized - primitive philosophies - aspects of African philosophy. Ref.