Paulin J. Hountondji - Philosophical Work

Philosophical Work

Hountondji's philosophical influences include two of his teachers in Paris, Louis Althusser and Jacques Derrida. His reputation rests primarily on his critical work concerning the nature of African philosophy. His main target has been the ethnophilosophy of writers such as Placide Tempels and Alexis Kagame. He argues that such an approach confuses the methods of anthropology with those of philosophy, producing "a hybrid discipline without a recognizable status in the world of theory" (, p. 52). Part of the problem stems from that fact that ethnophilosophy is in large part a response to Western views of African thought; this polemical rôle works against its philosophical validity.

His approach has widened somewhat in later work; he still rejects ethnophilosophy as a genuine philosophical discipline, but he has moved towards more of a synthesis of traditional African thought and rigorous philosophical method.