Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Oruka and Sage Philosophy: New Insights in Sagacious Reasoning

  • Chapter
  • First Online:
The Palgrave Handbook of African Philosophy

Abstract

The chapter begins with an overview of the earliest beginnings of the sage philosophy project, first in its near precursors (such as Radin’s and Griaule’s research) and its coming to birth with Odera Oruka’s efforts, in the context of encouragement as well as criticism by Kwasi Wiredu and Paulin Hountondji. The chapter then explains some of Odera Oruka’s motivation for the project as well as the historical and cultural context at University of Nairobi in the 1970s. Presbey outlines sage philosophy’s methodology and goals, as well as early efforts and publications from Kenya. This is followed by a survey of the use of the method by other Kenyan philosophers, and the spread of the method to other African countries including Ethiopia, Tanzania, Uganda, Nigeria, and elsewhere, as well as providing insight into the criticism and advocacy the project has received. Presbey summarizes some of the key insights and contributions to philosophy made by the sages themselves. Finally, Presbey tackles the question of sage philosophy’s continued relevance in our rapidly changing and globalized world, and especially in the context of many political, economic, and cultural changes in Africa. The chapter ends with a survey of recent work in African philosophy that is related to sage philosophy but departs from (or goes beyond) Oruka’s methods or goals.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution
Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 259.00
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Hardcover Book
USD 329.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

References

  • Abraham, W.E. 1962. The Mind of Africa. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Azenabor, Godwin. 2002. Understanding the Problems in African Philosophy, 2nd ed. Lagos, Nigeria: First Academic Publishers.

    Google Scholar 

  • Azenabor, Godwin. 2009. Odera Oruka’s Philosophic Sagacity: Problems and Challenges of Conversation Method in African Philosophy, Thought and Practice: A Journal of the Philosophical Association of Kenya, 1 (1, Special issue), June: 69–86.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bello, A.G.A. 2004. Some Methodological Controversies in African Philosophy. In A Companion to African Philosophy, ed. Kwasi Wiredu, 263–273. Malden, MA: Blackwell.

    Google Scholar 

  • Chaungo, Barasa. 2002. Narrowing the Gap between Past Practices and Future Thoughts in a Transitional Kenyan Cultural Model, for Sustainable Family Livelihood Security (FLS). In Thought and Practice in African Philosophy: Selected Papers from the Sixth Annual Conference of the International Society for African Philosophy and Studies (ISAPS), ed. Gail Presbey, et al., 5, 217–222. East Africa: Occasional Papers; Nairobi: Konrad Adenauer-Stiftung.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dikirr, Patrick Maison. 1994. The Philosophy and Ethics Concerning Death and Disposal of the Dead among the Maasai. MA thesis, University of Nairobi.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dikirr, Patrick Maison. 1997/1999. Sagacity in the Maasai Concept of Death and Immortality. In Sagacious Reasoning: Henry Odera Oruka in Memoriam, ed. Graness and Kresse, 181–194. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang. Nairobi: East African Educational Publishers.

    Google Scholar 

  • Donders, Joseph. 2007. Interview by Gail Presbey, Washington, DC, 13 April. Recording in Possession of Gail Presbey.

    Google Scholar 

  • Eze, Emmanuel, and Lewis, Rick. 2000. African Philosophy at the Turn of the Millennium: Rick Lewis in Dialogue with Emmanuel Chukwudi Eze. Polylog: Forum for Intercultural Philosophizing 1 (1): 1–28.

    Google Scholar 

  • Falola, Toyin. 2016. Keynote Address, International Society for the Oral Literature of Africa (ISOLA) Conference, Memory and Remembrance in Africa and the Diaspora, University of Gainesville, 25 May.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gichohi, Wairimu. 1996. Indigenous African Philosophical Knowledge: A Critique. MA thesis, University of Nairobi.

    Google Scholar 

  • Graness, Anke, and Kresse, Kai eds. 1997/1999. Sagacious Reasoning: Henry Odera Oruka in Memoriam. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang/Nairobi: East African Educational Publishers.

    Google Scholar 

  • Graness, Anke. 2011. Das menschliche Minimum: Globale Gerechtigkeit aus afrikanischer Sicht: Henry Odera Oruka. Frankfurt am Main: Campus Verlag.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hallen, Barry. 2009. A Short History of African Philosophy, 2nd ed. Bloomington: Indiana UP.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hountondji, Paulin J. 1973. La philosophie et ses revolutions. Cahiers Philosophiques Africains/African Philosophical Journal 3 (4): 27–40.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hountondji, Paulin J. 1996. African Philosophy: Myth and Reality. Translated by Henri Evans and Jonathan Rée, 2nd ed. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hountondji, Paulin J. 1997. Introduction: Recentring Africa. In Endogenous Knowledge: Research Trails, ed. Paulin Hountondji, 1–39. Codesria: Dakar, Senegal.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hountondji, Paulin J. 2002. The Struggle for Meaning: Reflections on Philosophy, Culture, and Democracy in Africa, Research in International Studies, Africa Series 78. Athens: Ohio University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hountondji, Paulin. 2004. Knowledge as a Development Issue. In A Companion to African Philosophy, ed. Kwasi Wiredu, 529–537. Malden, MA: Blackwell.

    Google Scholar 

  • Imbo, Samuel Oluoch. 1998. An Introduction to African Philosophy. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield.

    Google Scholar 

  • Janz, Bruce B. 2009. Philosophy in an African Place. Lanham, MD: Lexington.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kalumba, Kibujjo. 2004. Sage Philosophy: Its Methodology, Results, Significance, and Future. In A Companion to African Philosophy, ed. Kwasi Wasi, 274–282. Malden, MA: Blackwell.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kathanga, Ngungi. 1992. Philosophic Sagacity in Africa. MA thesis, University of Nairobi.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kazeem, Fayemi Ademola. 2012. H. Odera Oruka and the Question of Methodology in African Philosophy: A Critique. Thought and Practice: A Journal of the Philosophical Association of Kenya 4 (2), December: 185–204.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kimmerle, Heinz. 1997. The Philosophical Text in the African Oral Tradition: The Opposition of Oral and Literate and the Politics of Difference. In Philosophy and Democracy in Intercultural Perspective, eds. Heinz Kimmerle and Franz Wimmer, 43–56. Amsterdam: Rodopi.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kresse, Kai. 2007. Philosophising in Mombasa: Knowledge, Islam and Intellectual Practice on the Swahili Coast. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kresse, Kai. 2008. Can Wisdom be Taught? Kant, Sage Philosophy, and Ethnographic Reflections from the Swahili Coast. In Teaching for Wisdom: Cross-Cultural Perspectives on Fostering Wisdom, eds. Michel Ferrari and Georges Potworowski, 187–202. Dordrecht: Springer.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lodewyckx, Herman. 2016. In Memory of Professor A. J. Smet. http://www.academia.edu/11955216/In_memory_of_Prof._Father_A.J._Smet. Accessed 5 June 2016.

  • Makinde, M. Akin. 1978. Robin Horton’s ‘Philosophy’: An Outline of Intellectual Error. Reading Presented at the University of Ife, Nigeria, 20 June.

    Google Scholar 

  • Makinde, M. Akin. 1988. African Philosophy, Culture, and Traditional Medicine. Athens: Ohio University Center for International Studies.

    Google Scholar 

  • Makinde, M. Akin. 1989. Philosophy in Africa. In The Substance of African Philosophy, ed. Campbell Shittu Momoh, 88–125. Auchi, Nigeria: African Philosophy Projects.

    Google Scholar 

  • Maryknoll Institute of African Studies. 2013–14. Sage Philosophy: The Root of African Philosophy and Religion. Course Catalog.

    Google Scholar 

  • Masolo, D.A. 1994. African Philosophy in Search of an Identity. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Masolo, D.A. 2010. Self and Community in a Changing World. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Momoh, Campbell Shittu. 1979. An African Conception of Being and the Traditional Problem of Freedom and Determinism. Ph.D. dissertation, Indiana University Bloomington, July.

    Google Scholar 

  • Momoh, Campbell Shittu. 1981. Modern Theories in an African Philosophy. The Nigerian Journal of Philosophy 1 (2): 8–25.

    Google Scholar 

  • Momoh, Campbell Shittu. 1985. African Philosophy: Does It Exist? Diogenes 33 (130), April: 73–104.

    Google Scholar 

  • Momoh, Campbell Shittu (ed.). 1989. The Substance of African Philosophy. Auchi, Nigeria: African Philosophy Projects.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mosima, Pius Maija. 2016. Philosophic Sagacity and Intercultural Philosophy: Beyond Odera Oruka. Leiden, Netherlands: African Studies Center.

    Google Scholar 

  • Munyakho, Dorothy. 1990. No Easy Road to Family Planning. Daily Nation (Nairobi), 3 April.

    Google Scholar 

  • Muyila, Wafula. 2012. Traditional African Communalism and the Neo-Communal Spirit in Africa. Saarbrucken, Germany: Lambert Academic Publishers.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ndaba, W.J. 1996. Odera Oruka’s Sage Philosophy: Individualistic vs. Communal Philosophy. In Beyond the Question of African Philosophy: A Selection of Papers Presented at the International Colloquia, UNISA, 1994–1996, eds. A.P.J. Roux and P.H. Coetzee. Pretoria: University of South Africa Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Nyarwath, Oriare. 1997/1999. Sagacity and Freedom. In Sagacious Reasoning; Henry Odera Oruka in Memoriam, eds. Anke Graness, and Kai Kresse, 211–218. Frankfurtam Main: Peter Lang/Nairobi: East African Educational Publishers.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ochieng, Omedi. 2008. The Epistemology of African Philosophy: Sagacious Knowledge and the Call for a Critical and Contextual Epistemology. International Philosophical Quarterly 48 (3), September: 337–359.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ochieng, Omedi. 2011. The Ideology of African Philosophy: The Silences and Possibilities of African Rhetorical Knowledge. In Silence and Listening as Rhetorical Arts, eds. Cheryl Glenn and Krista Ratcliffe, 147–162. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ochieng’-Odhiambo, F. 1994 The Significance of Philosophic Sagacity in African Philosophy. PhD thesis, University of Nairobi.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ochieng’-Odhiambo, F. 2002a. The Evolution of Sagacity: The Three Stages of Odera Oruka’s Philosophy. Philosophia Africana 5 (1), March: 19–32.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ochieng’-Odhiambo, F. 2002b. Some Basic Issues about Philosophic Sagacity: Twenty Years Later. In Perspectives in African Philosophy: An Anthology on “Problematics of an African Philosophy: Twenty Years Later, 1976–1996”, eds. Claude Sumner and Samuel Wolde Yohannes, 64–75. Ethiopia: Addis Ababa University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ochieng’-Odhiambo, F. 1997/1999. Philosophic Sagacity Revisited. In Sagacious Reasoning: Henry Odera Oruka in Memoriam, ed. Graness and Kresse, 171–179. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang/Nairobi: East African Educational Publishers.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ogot, Bethwell A. 1995. The Construction of a National Culture. In Decolonization and Independence in Kenya, 1940–1993, eds. B.A. Ogot and W.R. Ochieng’, 214–236. Athens: Ohio University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Oluwole, Sophie Bosede. 1997a/1999. Oruka’s Mission in African Philosophy. In Sagacious Reasoning: Henry Odera Oruka in Memoriam, ed. Graness and Kresse, 149–162. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang/Nairobi: East African Educational Publishers.

    Google Scholar 

  • Oluwole, Sophie Bosede. 1997b. Philosophy and Oral Tradition. Ikeja, Lagos, Nigeria: African Research Consultancy (ARK).

    Google Scholar 

  • Oruka, Henry Odera. 1975. The Fundamental Principles in the Question of ‘African Philosophy’ I. Second Order 4 (1), January: 44–55.

    Google Scholar 

  • Oruka, Henry Odera. 1980. Philosophy and the Search for a National Culture. Sunday Nation, 31 August, 30.

    Google Scholar 

  • Oruka, Henry Odera. 1989a. Ethics, Beliefs, and Attitudes Affecting Family Planning in Kenya Today: A Final Report. Kenya: Institute of Population Studies, University of Nairobi.

    Google Scholar 

  • Oruka, Henry Odera. 1989b. Traditionalism and Modernisation in Kenya: Customs, Spirits and Christianity. In The S. M. Otieno Case: Death and Burial in Modern Kenya, eds. J.B. Ojwang and J.N.K. Mugambi, 78–88. Nairobi: University of Nairobi Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Oruka, Henry Odera, ed. 1990. Sage Philosophy: Indigenous Thinkers and Modern Debate on African Philosophy. Leiden, Netherlands: E. J. Brill; second edition, Nairobi: ACTS Press, 1991.

    Google Scholar 

  • Oruka, Henry Odera. 1992. Oginga Odinga: His Philosophy and Beliefs. Nairobi: Initiatives Publishers.

    Google Scholar 

  • Oruka, Henry Odera. 1997. Practical Philosophy. In Search of an Ethical Minimum. Nairobi: East African Educational Publishers.

    Google Scholar 

  • Oruka, Henry Odera. n.d. “The Philosophical Roots of Culture in Western Kenya.” Grant proposal, in possession of Gail Presbey. (For corroboration of the date, see Ochieng’-Odhiambo, 2002‚ 29).

    Google Scholar 

  • Oseghare, Anthony. 1985. The Relevance of Sagacious Reasoning in African Philosophy. PhD thesis, University of Nairobi. Abstract. University of Nairobi Digital Repository. http://erepository.uonbi.ac.ke/handle/11295/23580. Accessed 12 June 2016.

  • Oseghare, Anthony. 1992. Sagacity in African Philosophy. International Philosophical Quarterly 32 (1), March: 95–104.

    Google Scholar 

  • Presbey, Gail. 1997. Who Counts as a Sage? Problems in the Further Implementation of Sage Philosophy. Quest: Philosophical Discussions 11 (1–2), June and December: 53–65.

    Google Scholar 

  • Presbey, Gail. 2000. H. Odera Oruka on Moral Reasoning. Journal of Value Inquiry 34 (4), December: 517–528.

    Google Scholar 

  • Presbey, Gail. 2007. Sage Philosophy: Criteria that Distinguish it from Ethnophilosophy and Make It a Unique Approach within African Philosophy. Philosophia Africana 10 (2), August: 127–160.

    Google Scholar 

  • Presbey, Gail. 2012a. Attempts To Create an Inter-ethnic and Inter-generational ‘National Culture’ in Kenya. Diogenes 59 (3–4), November: 48–59. doi:10.1177/0392192113493726.

  • Presbey, Gail. 2012b. Kenyan Sages on Equality of Sexes. Thought and Practice: A Journal of the Philosophical Association of Kenya, Special issue on Odera Oruka Seventeen Years On 4 (2), December: 111–145.

    Google Scholar 

  • Presbey, Gail. 2014. Sage Philosophy. Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, September. http://www.iep.utm.edu/afr-sage/. Accessed 12 June 2016.

  • Radin, Paul. 1957. Primitive Man as Philosopher, 2nd ed. New York: Dover.

    Google Scholar 

  • Smith, Daniel. 2008. Counter-Hegemony and Sage Philosophy. In The Dialogue of Cultural Traditions: Global Perspective, eds. William Sweet, George F. McLean, Tomonobu Imamichi, Safak Ural, and O. Faruk Akyol, 567–582. Washington, DC: Council for Research in Values and Philosophy.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sumner, Claude, and Samuel Wolde Yohannes (eds.). 2002. Perspectives in African Philosophy: An Anthology on “Problematics of an African Philosophy: Twenty Years Later, 1976–1996”. Ethiopia: Addis Ababa University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Van Hook, Jay M. 1995. Kenyan Sage Philosophy: A Review and Critique. Philosophical Forum 27 (1), Fall: 54–65.

    Google Scholar 

  • Verharen, Charles. 2006. Sage Philosophy, Rationality and Science: The Case of Ethiopia. Ethiopian Journal of the Social Sciences and Humanities 4 (1), July: 13–32.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wiredu, Kwasi. 1976. How Not to Compare African Thought with Western Thought. Ch’Indaba 2: 4–8. Reprinted in Albert G. Mosley (1995) African Philosophy: Selected Readings, 159–171. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wiredu, Kwasi. 1980. Philosophy and an African Culture. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wiredu, Kwasi. 2004. Introduction: African Philosophy in our Time. In A Companion to African Philosophy, ed. Kwasi Wiredu, 1–27. Malden, MA: Blackwell.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Detroit Mercy, Detroit, USA

    Gail M. Presbey

Authors
  1. Gail M. Presbey
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of Ibadan, Ibadan, Nigeria

    Adeshina Afolayan

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

    Toyin Falola

Copyright information

© 2017 The Author(s)

About this chapter

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this chapter

Presbey, G.M. (2017). Oruka and Sage Philosophy: New Insights in Sagacious Reasoning. 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_6

Download citation

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation