African Philosophy: Rethinking the Ethics of Development and Human Well-being in the Twenty-First Century

Towards the end of his book, African Philosophical Adventures , John Murungi laments the injurious impact of Western epistemological hegemony on the humanity and well-being of non-Western peoples and societies, especially Africans. He describes the ensuing situation as a crisis about what it means to be called human or to have the right to exist as human in the twenty-first century: Today, human rights are in a state of crisis and this crisis is fundamentally the crisis of being human. … [The] planetary mode of being has fallen under the tyrannical regime of Euro-Western anthropology. The voice of African anthropology, as is the case with other non-Euro-Western voices of anthropology, remains muted. Africans, particularly, have been reduced to beggars in matters of hermeneutics and understanding of being human. They have been compelled and are even today compelled to look up to Euro-West for assistance in self-understanding. In matters that pertain to self-understanding they look for foreign aid. …Having been voided of what they [Africans] are and of the ability for self-understanding they are compelled to look outside themselves to make sense of themselves. (142–43)