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The Palgrave Handbook of African Philosophy pp 539–553Cite as

Palgrave Macmillan

Philosophy of Science and Africa

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Abstract

Recent contributions to long-standing debates in philosophy of science include (i) a revision of the central importance that community and anonymity play in progressive scientific enterprise; (ii) a renewed emphasis upon pluralism, inclusiveness, and diversity both in models of explanatory adequacy and in methods of inquiry—within each research specialization as much as across disciplinary divides; (iii) the value of criticizable corrigibility as a mark of scientific pedigree; (iv) a recognition of the indelible interdependence between generalizable, theoretical reasoning on the one hand, and localizable, practical problem solving on the other; (v) a general abandonment of efforts to define and police any fixed demarcation between science and non-science; (vi) a celebration of wonder, together with a renunciation of exhaustive completeness as realizable goals in the explanation of nature; (vii) an appreciation of the interdependency between human flourishing and the welfare of all forms comprising the family of life. Lauer, in this chapter, uses these current perspectives in the history and philosophy of science as basis for rethinking tacit assumptions about African intellectual heritages. Lauer argues that these perspectives help to overcome the illusion that there exists an indomitable, diametric opposition between Africans’ allegedly regressive cultural attitudes and indigenous superstitions about nature versus the enabling paradigms that have nurtured scientific initiative exclusively within the cultural purviews of Eurasia and the Americas.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Dar es Salaam, Dar es Salaam, Tanzania

    Helen Lauer

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  1. Helen Lauer
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of Ibadan, Ibadan, Nigeria

    Adeshina Afolayan

  2. The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, Texas, USA

    Toyin Falola

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Lauer, H. (2017). Philosophy of Science and Africa. In: Afolayan, A., Falola, T. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of African Philosophy. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-59291-0_35

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