Philosophic Sagacity
Philosophic Sagacity is Odera Oruka's research project begun in the early 70s and was designed to preserve the philosophical thoughts of traditional Kenyan sages. The basic principle of Philosophic Sagacity is that in both traditional and modern Africa there exist women and men, illiterate and literate, who commonly engage in philosophical reflection on various problems of human life and nature in general.
Unlike Ethnophilosophy, which emphasizes communal thinking, Philosophic Sagacity searches for individual thinkers in the traditional community. These "sages" express and defend their philosophical thoughts and opinions on various issues of nature and human life. Some of these thoughts even if not philosophical in the strict sense could nevertheless constitute raw data for technical philosophical reflections by professional or trained philosophers. Odera Oruka wanted to point out that there is and was a philosophy in Africa in the fullest sense of the word: a philosophy that deals with daily human problems and issues which are common to every human being, such as the existence of a Deity, life, knowledge, death etc. Such issues are not the sole domain of literate people but are usually best addressed by the few who can “transcend” the communal way of thinking.
Though some have often equated "Sage Philosophy" with "Philosophic sagacity," Odera Oruka did not. Odera Oruka distinguished between two wings of Sage Philosophy: (1) folk or popular sagacity and (2) philosophic sagacity. While the former expresses well known communal maxims, aphorisms and general common sense truths, the latter expresses the thoughts of wise men and women that transcend popular wisdom and attain a philosophic capacity. Hence whereas all instances of philosophic sagacity locate within sage philosophy, not every instance of sage philosophy constitute philosophic sagacity. The novelty of Odera Oruka's project is to be found in philosophic sagacity since the folk sagacity dimension of sage philosophy would be a fallback to ethnophilosophy.
Read more about this topic: Henry Odera Oruka
Famous quotes containing the words philosophic and/or sagacity:
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