Rethinking the model of humanities
Why rethink the model of the humanities? The question might seem pointless, given that the humanities – and the humanism they embody – appear to be a force for progress and an open-minded worldview, inviting us to consider the conditions necessary for peaceful coexistence. It is, in fact, widely accepted that the humanities provide one of the intellectual foundations necessary to shape an autonomous and enlightened individual, equipping them with the conceptual and cultural tools needed to understand the world in which they live and encouraging them to embark on a noble path where they will be able to conduct themselves in a manner befitting humanity, with respect for themselves and others, and with respect for the dignity of the human person. In short, to work through their actions to build a better world.
A laudable ambition if ever there was one, and an absolute necessity if we are to counter not only identity-based isolationism, the assertion of supremacism and xenophobic excesses of all kinds, but also policies that render people vulnerable, inequalities and discrimination; not merely to affirm, but to work towards, the possibility of a politics of relationship. A genuine cosmopolitics.
Why, then, should we rethink the model for the humanities?
There are two main reasons. Firstly, Foucault’s work[1] has highlighted the extent to which what is validated and recognised as knowledge is the subject of – or the result of – a power struggle. No knowledge, no science, no ‘truth’ seems to escape this. The humanities are therefore also caught up in this power struggle. Secondly, since at least the mid-19th century[2], the knowledge and scholarship that form part of the Western humanities have been challenged by African and African-American thinkers, and works demonstrating their ethnocentrism have become legion since the late 1970s, whether they draw on postcolonial, decolonial or critical African approaches.
To examine the Western humanities in order to trace their genealogy, understand their driving forces, and identify both their bright side and their dark side might seem counter-intuitive to anyone wishing to study the African humanities. However, the hegemonic/universalist pretensions of the Western humanities – which define themselves as ‘the humanities’ rather than ‘Western humanities’ – combined with modern European colonial imperialism have resulted in these humanities becoming a model, including for African populations, which is found at the heart of many African universities. Therefore, if we are to work towards developing new African curricula, it is important to understand how certain forms of knowledge are not necessarily universal but are linked to Western hegemony.
This preliminary study of the Western humanities is two-fold. Firstly, it sought to understand the origins of the humanities. This helps to grasp their foundational colonial nature. Secondly, it leads to a re-evaluation of the relevance of certain Western scientific approaches.
The humanities – and the concept of humanism – which emerged as a model of knowledge and of being-in-the-world during the Renaissance have a long, non-linear history that can be traced back to Greco-Roman antiquity. In his comprehensive work on the history of humanism, *Départager l’humanité. Humains, humanismes, inhumains[3], François Hartog reminds us that the idea of a human specificity has been present since antiquity. It is found in the use of the term humanitas, which denotes that which constitutes the humanity of the human being. This humanitas is, therefore, conceived in terms of culture as that which lifts the human being out of a state of savagery. Humanitas is therefore not automatically bestowed upon every human being. It is acquired. And, as François Hartog emphasises:
‘Just as it is acquired, humanitas can be lost: there is always a risk of slipping back into savagery or a barbaric state. How does the process of civilisation work? Humanitas is “a mos, that is to say, both a form of behaviour and the disposition to adopt that behaviour”. It is won over inhumanitas. […] It follows, quite clearly, that education is vital for developing, to the fullest extent possible, the sociability necessary for the life of a citizen[4].’
Becoming a citizen, becoming a man[5], is something that can be learnt. Since ancient times, gymnastics has been relied upon to educate the body, and philosophy to educate the soul. The ‘studia humanitatis’ were intended for free men and would, a few centuries later, inspire the men of the Renaissance who, like Budé, believed that whilst human beings are naturally endowed with intelligence, ‘a regression towards animality[6]’ is always possible but can be avoided through culture, the exercise of reason and the art of speech (eloquence). Indeed, in the 14th century,
‘The humanities initially emphasised familiarity with ancient texts, the art of oratory and, more broadly, a culture dedicated to serving society: that of men such as Salutati, Bruni and Poggio, who served in chancelleries. It was only later, during the 15th century, that the term came to refer to a set of disciplines. […] Soon, universities also began offering such courses. Eventually, the humanities came to encompass five disciplines: grammar, rhetoric, history, poetry and moral philosophy. It was precisely in this context of the late 15th and early 16th centuries that the term ‘humanist’ (umanista) emerged, to describe a teacher responsible for teaching the studia humanitatis, also known as studia humaniora, ‘studies that cultivate humanity’.[7]”
The development or codification of knowledge in the ‘humanities’ thus went hand in hand with a trend towards the professionalisation and disciplinarisation of this knowledge within the emerging European universities. François Hartog observes that:
‘The term [humanist] marks a certain professionalisation of these studies, which gradually came to denote a new educational system. The term took hold and spread throughout Italy, then beyond the Alps, first to Germany. And whilst the studies became more specialised, the term ‘humanist’ tended, conversely, to broaden in scope. During the 16th century, the humanist was no longer merely a schoolmaster, a translator or a publisher; he was also the bearer of a new literary culture[8].’
François Hartog sums it up as follows:
‘Let us bear in mind that, by the end of the 15th century, there were humanities and humanists, whose primary task was to teach them. They were also known as studia humaniora or even bona littera, bona artes, thereby indicating that the ‘liberal arts’ aimed to make those who practised them ‘more human’, that they helped to make them, in the Latin expression, a vir bonus, a man of virtue and a good citizen, that is, a man skilled in practising the art of speech (ars dicendi) in the service of his city. The study of Latin and Greek, however arduous, did not hesitate to present itself as a comprehensive educational programme. But it is pointless to seek in it a philosophical or metaphysical inquiry of the sort “What is man?”. Genesis and God made man have already provided a complete answer. In a more limited or pragmatic sense, their question is: “What is the best way to make man a homo humanus, more human, fully human, capable of acting appropriately in the society in which he lives?” (Hartog, 95)
He added:
“Whatever the merits of the argument may be, it is clear that between the 14th and 16th centuries the humanists largely won the day in the field of education. In contrast to the oligarchy based on birth, merit or wealth, they offered a culture and a way of life that served as markers of distinction. […] The humanists gained social recognition and prestige, whilst ‘the foundations were laid for an educational system that shaped the European elites’ over more than three centuries[9].”
Thus, since Greco-Roman antiquity, a model of knowledge has been forged which eventually became specialised and the preserve of professionals. This led to the disciplining of knowledge. This process was driven by the desire to live in a so-called civilised manner, setting oneself apart from a so-called state of nature. The humanities, or humanistic studies, have always been understood within a nature/culture dichotomy which they perpetuate. They assert that it is through culture and the exercise of reason that human beings (homo) become truly human (humanitas). And the practice of the humanities serves to distinguish those who have been educated in these specific studies from the rest of humanity, perceived as remaining in a state of nature, and described as ‘savage’, ‘primitive’ or ‘barbaric’; the latter being perceived as savages who have managed to form a human community but whose civilisation does not reach the level of achievement of European humanist civilisation. Humanist studies, even if they had succeeded in formulating the notion of a (universal) humanity, have thus always conveyed an unequal and hierarchical view of human peoples and have conceived of themselves as a model of knowledge, that is to say, as knowledge intended to serve as a model for other forms of knowledge, as knowledge which, alone, can enable human beings to become fully human. Indeed, as François Hartog points out:
‘We can thus trace, from Cicero to Erasmus and Budé, the Roman tradition of the humanities as agents of humanisation. Of course, Christianity necessitated a rethinking of the Roman model. […] Learning to read allegorically and learning to speak prepare the Christian to go beyond the letter of Scripture and to spread the word of Christ. The aim is to humanise in order to Christianise, to make one more human in order to make one more Christian: the homo humanus and the homo christianus must be able to move forward together, the former supporting and enriching the latter, but without ever forgetting that the latter takes precedence over the former[10].’
This would later form the basis of the so-called ‘civilising mission’ of the colonial project, according to which the colonised had to be educated in order to be ‘humanised’—that is, to be lifted out of their state of savagery and raised to a higher level of humanity through education. The very idea of a civilising mission, or of the duty to civilise colonised populations, is based on this conception of humanity as something acquired through culture and the exercise of reason, as codified by Europe, particularly within its ‘humanities’. Thus, the opening of schools during the colonisation process went hand in hand with evangelisation. The aim was to educate in order to raise the so-called ‘savages’ or ‘primitives’ to a higher level of humanity, so that their true humanisation—that is, their Christianisation—might be achieved.
In this process, the ‘good’ savage—the one who is not a barbarian, who does not pose a mortal threat to the coloniser—is infantilised. After Pope Paul III established in the bull of 1537 that the Indians (of the New World) are “true men” “capable of receiving the discipline of the faith”, the theologian Francisco de Vitoria “established in his De Indis (1557) that the natives must be regarded as children[11]”. To turn savages into children is to reintegrate them into the humanity from which they had previously been excluded. This explains the shift in how African populations are perceived and treated as a result. Viewed as a servile labour force, enslaved and deported across the Atlantic, they were initially regarded as belonging more to the forces of nature than to humanity; this made them movable property, much like livestock or the herds on plantations. But by being integrated into humanity through childhood, they were regarded as capable of being educated and thus gaining in humanity. This conception would lie at the heart of the foundational philosophical texts of modern Western humanities, which would perceive Africa as the childhood of humanity[12]; thereby providing the colonial enterprise with what was undoubtedly one of its most effective ideological justifications: the ‘civilising mission’. This explains the importance of establishing schools within the human zoos of the early 20th century. The aim was to demonstrate to the peoples of Europe that the Republic was civilising these so-called savages through its humanities. Spreading the Enlightenment was regarded, from a Western, humanist and colonial perspective, as the means of realising the humanity (humanitas) of the human race[13]. The humanist coloniser – and so this expression is not an oxymoron – the missionary, is convinced that:
“Provided they are given a good education, they will be able to make progress. Herein lies the justification for their subjugation, at least for as long as they remain children. But then the responsibility for guiding them falls to the ‘fathers’. This is a way of taming the indigenous peoples’ initial otherness, bringing them simultaneously into the shared chronos: they exist in the same time as us, but just a little behind. Later, in the modern era, it will be easy to move from such a framework (child/adult) to that of evolutionism (civilised/primitive): having remained in a time that is, for us, long past, they inform us of our origins[14].’
This explains the keen interest shown by French Enlightenment philosophers in the peoples of southern Africa. Indeed, the Khoisan of southern Africa were scrutinised and reduced to a concept (the ‘Hottentot’) as European philosophers and scientists sought to define the boundaries of humanity, deciding to portray them as the survivors of a primitive form of humanity. The Khoisan thus played, at their own expense, a role in the debate between polygenists and monogenists on the origins of humanity, fuelling ‘since the 16th century, a long tradition of travel literature and philosophical controversies[15]’. Cuvier set out to put an end to this debate, scalpel in hand. The scientist believed that whether or not Africans were human lay in the sex of their women and undertook to dissect the body of Saartje Baartman, the so-called Hottentot Venus, in order to determine whether the anatomy of Khoisan women was human.
‘In this fundamental debate over whether or not the human species is a single entity, the young woman’s genitals – depending on whether they revealed an extra organ, a sign of hermaphroditism or a simple malformation – would represent a decisive factor. Voltaire, already, in his Essai sur les mœurs (1761), saw in this anatomical feature mentioned by travellers an argument in support of his thesis of multiple human species. With Sarah Baartman, naturalists finally had the anatomical subject – that is to say, without euphemism, the body – that would settle the question[16].’
After dissection, Cuvier concluded that ‘the Hottentots belong to the same human race as the white race, and he possesses the scientific proof of this, preserved in a jar of formaldehyde. But whilst the monogenism espoused by Cuvier and many of his contemporaries may be a form of humanism, it is not truly egalitarian. Indeed, Cuvier places the Hottentots at the very bottom of the scale of the human species[17]’. The fact is that humanism and supremacism went rather well together at the time…
In the 19th century, as the colonisation of Africa became official following more than two centuries of Western slave-trading exploitation, and as the European imperialist states set out to conquer the continent, a significant nationalist movement took hold within the European humanities, leading to the view that the humanities contributed to the formation of national identities and, in the same vein, to the conceptualisation of a ‘white Europe’, against which the ‘invention of Africa’[18] is understood. This movement, in which European philosophers were actively involved, was not without consequences for the very way in which the humanities and philosophy were conceived and practised, as they took on a nationalist turn[19]. Indeed, as François Hartog points out,
‘In the 19th century, a degree in the humanities was tantamount to a passport to the bourgeoisie. Whilst the humanities had become Christianised under the Jesuits, politicised during the 18th century and the Revolution, and were regarded as a reliable ally by defenders of the established order in the first half of the 19th century, they were to become ‘nationalised’ under the secular republicans. They contributed not only to the formation of the national language but also, it is argued, to that of the national spirit[20].”
The idea began to take shape that a people, their language and their spirit were so intimately linked to one another and to the land in which they flourished that they would eventually give rise to a philosophy of their own. The genius of peoples is embodied in their language and philosophy. And it seems clear to nineteenth-century philosophers that the humanist thought which will advance humanity is that of the humanities, heirs to the ‘classical’[21] knowledge of Greek antiquity. The latter is thus drawn upon to reflect on the origins of European civilisation. Indeed,
“The source from which to draw inspiration is well known: one must set out for Greece, the land of taste, of freedom and, even more so, of logos. Greece is the model and the true homeland: ‘It is only there,’ Humboldt asserts, ‘that we find the ideal of what we ourselves wish to be and of what we wish to bring forth.’ This Humanismus is therefore far more Greek than Roman[22]”
And so the humanities end up inventing a Europe born of the ‘Greek miracle’[23], that is to say, one whose defining feature is ‘its’ philosophy, held up as a model of knowledge.
In the nineteenth century, as the various fields of knowledge became established as distinct disciplines (the emergence of geography, ethnology, anthropology, literary history, statistics, etc.), philosophy – the central pillar of the humanities – became the preserve of specialists and transformed into a speculative practice, whereas in antiquity it had been conceived as a ‘way of life’[24] and a spiritual exercise serving to elevate the soul (Plato). A revolution in knowledge is taking place, playing a decisive role in the way knowledge is structured in Europe. It is at this point that philosophy, mainly in Germany and France, begins to write its own history, just as Europe is conceiving of itself as a concept. Without going into the details of the Franco-German disputatio on the history of philosophy[25], let us note that from the end of the 18th century onwards, the task of historians of philosophy was to establish a European specificity. It thus appears that Europe as an idea or concept is a construct of the human and cultural sciences of the second half of the 18th century. The imaginary institution of Europe in the historical sciences took shape around 1750. From this perspective, there is an invention of Europe – which would come to be, by extension, the West – as a world that supposedly emerged at the end of the Middle Ages and occupies the centre of the ‘civilisational world map’[26] of historians of philosophy. Europe is constructed as “the natural and exclusive homeland of analytical and reflective rationality[27]”. It becomes “the biotope and territory of philosophy[28]”. This process leads to the idea that what characterises Europe is freedom, secularisation and rational thought, whereas Eastern societies have remained religious, theocratic and despotic. In this process, Europe is thus conceived as “the vital space for certain intellectual productions, in particular as the biotope of philosophy[29]”. Catherine König-Pralong specifies that “the ideas of philosophical consciousness, analytical rationality and scientific method form the basis of the founding myth of European modernity[30]” at the very moment when the crucial issue of secularisation marked the departure from a world where religion was the structuring force (Marcel Gauchet) and also signalled the emancipation of science, based on the conviction that knowledge lies outside the realm of belief. It would thus free itself from superstitions.
‘The idea of Europe was closely associated with a particular form of rationality. The history of modern philosophy has established the notion of a European civilisation characterised by speculative, analytical and reflective rationality. It conceived of this philosophical reason as an antidote to Arab and Jewish mysticism. By the end of the 18th century, freedom, secularism and philosophy thus formed the coordinates of a system in which analytical reason—which had resulted from a slow process of secularisation initiated in the Middle Ages—was set against the syncretic and passionate mysticism of the East[31].’
Thus, from the second half of the 18th century onwards, Europe (or the West) became ‘the natural, exclusive home of analytical and reflective rationality[32]’. An image of a ‘critical, rational, analytical and self-aware West[33]’ took shape, tracing its origins back to ancient Greece. From this perspective, philosophy is regarded as unique to the peoples of modern Europe and would not only prove decisive in the conception of European exceptionalism but would also play an active role in colonial imperialism.
Indeed, “philosophy has certainly played a central role in legitimising the ‘intellectual imperialism’ that characterises a section of modern European scholarship—an intellectual orientation described by Edward Said in the 20th century, but one that was already being discussed in the 19th century[34]”.
“The history of Enlightenment philosophy legitimises the superiority of modern European rationality, which is associated with critical thinking in science and philosophy, freedom in the arts and, in politics, specifically European forms of government, such as representative government[35].”
Philosophy is not a neutral science. It forms part of a colonial order of knowledge which it helps to establish by shaping a colonial view of the Other that confines Asia to an ancestral mystique, that posits that in the Americas two temporalities collide—that of the white (modern) coloniser and that of the so-called savage (primitive) peoples, and finally excludes sub-Saharan Africa from the march of History and Reason. Deprived of history, sub-Saharan Africa is reduced to the biological (race) by Western humanities. Europe, and by extension the West, draw up a division of the worlds that ‘consists in appropriating the history of progress, in nationalising fragments of the past or, conversely, in identifying eras alien to the historian’s rationality in order to set them in contrast – this is the case, for example, with the Middle Ages invented by the humanists.[36]” The decisive point comes with Hegel, who appropriates the entire history of philosophy. “According to Hegel, the history of philosophy indeed presents the development of the spirit, from its still abstract beginnings in Greece up to his own philosophy, the most concrete realisation of the spirit or the ‘Idea’[37].” Hegel writes as follows:
“In the West, we are on the very ground of philosophy proper. […] It is among the Greek people that we first encounter this concept of freedom, and it is there that philosophy begins for this very reason[38].”
Catherine König-Pralong points out that “Hegel was fascinated by Greece, which he described as the spiritual homeland of the Germans: ‘Greece: at this name the heart of the cultured man of Europe, and of us Germans in particular, feels at home’ (Lectures on the History of Philosophy, Vrin, 1971, p. 21)[39].’ Thus the idea of the ‘Greek miracle’ takes shape. Historians of philosophy date and locate the birth of philosophy in ancient Greece, where both the democratic spirit and discursive reason (and thus philosophy) are said to have originated. What this history seeks to demonstrate is the “shift from myth to reason, an abandonment of the religious or mythological paradigm in favour of ‘scientific’ thought[40]”. For Hegel, philosophy originated in Greece, developed in Europe and found “its most concrete and complete realisation in Hegelian philosophy[41]”. Philosophical historiography both establishes the superiority of modern reason and effected an “exclusive appropriation of philosophy[42]”
‘From 1780 onwards, most historians of philosophy defined their subject as being specific to European civilisation or cultures: the ideas of Europe, modernity and philosophical rationality were seen as forming a coherent system. […] In 19th-century Western Europe, philosophy was largely regarded as a specifically European phenomenon. In the historiographical narrative that took shape at the end of the 18th century, the philosophical spirit is said to have emerged in Greece in the 6th century BC. At the beginning of the Christian era, it is said to have spread throughout Western Europe and the Mediterranean, within the territory bounded by the Roman limes. In the modern era, it is said to have withdrawn and concentrated in Europe, establishing a philosophical colony from which missionaries and colonists exported its products to Asia and the Americas.[43]”
Thus, ‘beyond the divisions engendered by nationalism, Europe would thus be endowed with a philosophical unity[44]’. Within the history of European philosophy, it can be said that there was a genuine historical turning point around 1800:
“Around 1800, in pragmatic and rationalist historiography, China, Egypt and India – which had still featured prominently in the works of Voltaire and Brucker fifty years earlier – were dismissed out of hand. Their cultures may well have contained ancestral wisdom and powerful mysticism, but no philosophy[45].”
Philosophy becomes historicised, writes its own history and, in so doing, establishes a canon and a corpus, but also a limited and circumscribed understanding of the discipline, its method and its subjects; this was to be the subject of extensive discussion during the debate on African philosophy[46] in the 1970s and 1980s. The history of philosophy thus forms part of an identity movement and becomes a construction of the other within oneself and of the other. By making philosophy the very nature and culture of Europe, historians of philosophy have, in turn, shaped the others. Thus:
‘By the end of the 18th century, the history of academic philosophy had taken a turn towards naturalism and identity. European historians of philosophy constructed identity by constructing otherness. It was, in particular, the “Arabs” who played this role in the grand narratives developed within the history of philosophy to recount the advent of modern European rationality. Whilst historians of philosophy established their philosophical colony in Europe and thus contributed to the imaginary institution of European modernity, the Arab embodied an otherness that was close to, or even internal to, the European cultural tradition[47].’
Catherine König-Pralong explains:
‘In the history of philosophy, “Arab” thought broadly encompasses the philosophies produced in the Islamic world during the Middle Ages. Its territorial and cultural scope therefore appears to be defined by a body of texts inherited from the medieval period. It includes non-Muslim philosophers, such as Moses Maimonides, an 11th-century Jewish thinker who wrote in Hebrew and Arabic, and Muslim intellectuals who were not ethnically Arab, such as Avicenna (Ibn Sina), a Persian physician and philosopher from the early 11th century AD. […] Yet the Arabs had shared parts of their history with the Europeans, particularly during the Middle Ages. They were monotheists, had received and studied the Bible and, from the 8th century onwards, Greek philosophy. Furthermore, from the 12th century onwards, a significant part of the Greek philosophical heritage, particularly Aristotle, had been introduced into Latin Europe thanks to translations from Arabic[48].’
The Muslim world will serve as a point of contrast. Europe is associated with freedom, rationality, secularisation and, consequently, philosophy. The Muslim world, on the other hand, is associated with the pre-modern state, despotism and religion… But more generally, it is all non-European cultures that are excluded from the scope of the history of philosophy.
This interpretation of history has very specific epistemological implications, in that non-European territories were to be viewed as fields of empirical study, whilst ‘the exceptional nature of the West was to be reflected in theoretical knowledge and the humanities[49]’. We thus have a fundamental epistemological distinction that establishes a geography and an economy of knowledge.
‘Modern philosophers – Husserl, in this case – are said to have imposed a scholarly interpretation of the world in which only the West can be the subject of speculative knowledge, whilst the rest of the world forms the vast terrain of empirical inquiry. This thesis is, moreover, borne out by the economy of knowledge in the West. The centre of the academic world is organised by the system of disciplines that emerged around 1800, which expresses Western rationalities. The periphery is ‘governed by the logic of “cultural areas” and a methodological perspectivism that resulted in part from the critical reflections of anthropology in the 20th century.’[50]” (181)
Thus, within this knowledge economy, the humanities, philosophy and the social sciences are the preserve of Europe (and, by extension, the West). The non-Western world, meanwhile, is divided into cultural spheres corresponding to fields of inquiry, empirical studies and applied knowledge (rather than holistic claims, as in philosophy): this is the world of anthropology and ethnology, disciplines that emerged in the 19th century and arose from colonial needs[51]. Whilst numerous studies have demonstrated how and to what extent anthropology is, at its core, a colonial science, the link between philosophy – the heart of the humanities – and colonisation[52] has been less explored. Yet it is undeniable that, in the modern era, philosophy too is part of an epistemological landscape deeply marked by the slave trade, slavery and colonisation. This is because it lies at the heart of a racial episteme. Indeed, in the 18th century, the history of philosophy borrowed the notions of race (Kant), lineage and hybridisation from the natural sciences, a body of knowledge that greatly influenced it. According to Catherine König-Pralong, there was a dual naturalisation of philosophy around 1800. ‘Philosophy is naturalised as European. […] It is denied any national affiliation or extra-European territorial context, with the exception of the Americas[53]” and “it borrows theoretical tools, a nomenclature and a way of thinking from natural history[54]”. As a reminder, “until the mid-19th century, the natural sciences were part of the German faculties of philosophy (philosophische Fakultäten), the equivalent of the French faculties of arts[55]. ’ It was only during the second half of the 19th century that the natural sciences and the human sciences became separate; but the latter would have been significantly altered, in their approach and vocabulary, by this proximity.
To summarise, it can thus be argued that, from the second half of the 18th century onwards, the history of philosophy played a part in the establishment of a colonial and racial epistemological order which reached its full form in the 19th century, at the height of colonial expansionism, with the emergence of colonial knowledge and sciences, such as African studies[56]. It seems important to us to emphasise that one of the distinctive features of this colonial and racial epistemological order is that it both asserts itself as such and conceals itself as such. Modern philosophers have had no hesitation in appropriating the concept of race and defending the superiority of the white race[57], which was elevated to the status of a model of humanity. In this process, specific use was made of the universal in order to camouflage this colonial epistemological order. Charles Mills thus demonstrates in The Racial Contract[58] how Western curricula organise white ignorance by concealing the fact that ‘the classical social contract also presupposes a tacit “epistemological” contract[59]’ which ‘prescribes standards of cognition to which the signatories must adhere[60]’. Mills speaks of an ‘epistemology of ignorance’ insofar as the racial contract serves to conceal a modern order that enshrines white supremacy[61] and which expects white citizens to consent to this order[62] and structures white ‘ignorance’ (or denial). There is therefore a cognitive and moral distortion linked to race.
“The racial contract imposes a reversed epistemology on its signatories—an epistemology of ignorance—a specific pattern of local and global cognitive dysfunctions (which are psychologically and socially functional), producing an ironic outcome in which white people will generally be unable to understand the world they themselves have created[63].”
He went on to say:
‘There will be white mythologies, invented Orients, invented Africas, invented Americas, with corresponding fabricated populations; countries that never existed, inhabited by people who never existed – the Calibans and the Tontos, the Fridays and the Sambos – but who achieve a virtual reality through their existence in travellers’ accounts, popular myths, fiction for the general public and intellectuals, colonial reports, academic theories, Hollywood cinema, living in the white imagination and are resolutely imposed upon their alarmed counterparts who, for their part, are very much real. One might say, as a general rule, that white misunderstanding, misrepresentation, avoidance and wilful blindness regarding issues of race are among the most widespread mental phenomena of recent centuries, a moral and cognitive economy psychologically necessary for conquest, colonisation and slavery. And these phenomena are by no means accidental, but prescribed by the terms of the racial contract, which require a particular pattern of structured blindness and opacity in order to establish and maintain the white political system[64].’ (Mills, 53–54)
What is emerging, then, is an epistemology of wilful blindness (denial) and error that pits Western rationality against bestial or savage irrationality, and which asserts that Europe owes nothing, from a cultural and scientific perspective, to the rest of the world, as if it operated independently of other parts of the world. In fact, Europe imagines itself to be its own origin (‘Greek miracle’), its purpose and its agent; this leads to the idea that only Europe can possess knowledge.
‘The epistemological dimension is the corollary of the preventive restriction of knowledge to European knowers alone, which implies that in certain areas, true knowledge (scientific knowledge, universals) is not possible. Significant cultural achievements and intellectual progress are denied to these spaces which, without European intervention, are regarded as irremediably trapped in a cognitive state of superstition and ignorance. This is what Valentin Mudimbe calls ‘epistemological ethnocentrism’[65].”
Charles Mills quotes Mudimbe, who argues that:
“Since Africans were incapable of producing anything of value, Yoruba statuary must have been derived from the Egyptians, the art of Benin must have been a Portuguese creation, Zimbabwe’s architectural achievements were attributable to Arab craftsmen, and the Hausa and Buganda art of governance was an invention of white invaders[66].”
The art of naming is part of this racial/colonial epistemological order. By naming the conquered territories the ‘New World’ and christening them New England, New Holland, New France, New Orleans, they are turned into “spatial cultural extensions of Europe[67]” and integrated into the Western epistemological order; this results in “the ‘geography of monstrosity’ [Mudimbe] of the old European cartography[68]”.
‘These territories are tamed, transformed, made familiar, integrated into our space, and brought into the realm of European (and thus human) cognition so that they may be known and understood. Knowledge, science and the ability to grasp the world intellectually are confined to Europe, which emerges as the global centre of rationality, at least for European cognitive agents, who will be the ones to validate local claims to knowledge. For these spaces to be known, European perception is required[69].’
This racial epistemological order—an order of ignorance and concealment (denial)—has major consequences for white knowers: ‘whites will take for granted […] the validity of concepts legitimising the racial order that favours them […] subsequently […], they will take for granted the validity of concepts that deracialise the political system, denying its true racial structure[70]. ’ From this perspective, the concept of the universal is one such deracialising concept when, from a position of ‘overlook[71]’, it elevates a particularity (European or Western) to the status of a model of humanity.
The history of the Western humanities, their embeddedness within a colonial episteme—and thus their coloniality—necessitates a critical examination of these humanities. To understand, in a Foucauldian sense, their genealogy is to grasp that humanistic and philosophical discourses, which may appear open and generous, are also the site of power struggles and may conceal power relations that reflect the real, concrete domination of one people, class, gender, etc., over another. The sciences taught within academia are rooted in an epistemology of domination. The history of Western philosophy, a central pillar of the humanities, is the history of the imposition of a ‘test of humanity’ upon women[72] and non-Europeans—precisely those excluded from citizenship and the application of the earliest human rights. It is therefore important to understand how this ‘test of humanity’ imposed on so-called Black Africa has shaped the Western gaze, including the scientific one, and has structured scientific knowledge. It is crucial to understand that, in this regard, there is no objectivity or neutrality in scientific knowledge. This is why thinkers such as V.Y. Mudimbe have emphasised the need to deconstruct the knowledge produced about Africa. It is not merely a matter of producing a critical reading of the ‘colonial library’ and ridding ourselves – if indeed that is feasible – of ‘the smell of the father[73]’. But we must go further and question the disciplines and their operational methods, the way in which they engage with African realities, whilst casting a critical eye on the very architecture of knowledge as it has become established in the West – and, through the effects of globalisation, tends to impose itself across the world – and on its disciplinarisation. To think the humanities from an African perspective and to work on African humanities is thus to adopt the voice/path of indiscipline[74], not only because the disciplines as we know them at the start of the 21st century are the result of a process of institutionalisation of knowledge in the midst of the imperial/colonial era of the 19th century, but also because one can easily assume that the knowledge and know-how produced by non-Western societies do not correspond to the mental and cognitive architecture that governed the disciplinarisation of knowledge in the West; the evolution of Western knowledge being far from universal. The defiance of discipline, claimed and practised from an African perspective, can thus be understood as an act of ‘epistemic disobedience[75]’ that challenges the boundaries between disciplines established by modern knowledge. This implies understanding that each tradition of thought produces its own forms of rationality. Understanding this “requires taking seriously their relationship to the world but also, and above all, to that which transcends it—both their cosmology and their metaphysics[76]”; which implies a complete shift away from certain Western forms of knowledge and disciplines, foremost among which is perhaps anthropology.
‘By continually drawing on European theoretical sources, anthropology imposes upon human societies, from the outset, a language borrowed from European philosophy. If the worlds are plural, pluralism itself must be conceived by Europe. This act gives rise to projections of Deleuzian immanentism onto the indigenous populations of South America, which are articulated by stating quite bluntly: ‘The Indians are Deleuzian’. A genuine decolonisation of knowledge should, however, be something other than a mere reduction of ‘indigenous’ modes of thought to 20th-century French thought, which reproduces the subordination of the South to Europe[77].’
This requires a genuine epistemological revolution in order to understand non-Western societies through their own categories of thought, whilst bearing in mind that 21st-century African societies are no longer those of the 15th century and that they are, very often, characterised by epistemic plurality. Paying attention to the categories produced by societies and integrating them into a critical scientific analysis helps to avoid unfortunate cognitive distortions that ultimately distort reality by interpreting them through inappropriate categories. Mohamed Amer Meziane thus observes that:
‘Anthropology has perhaps done only one thing so far: decipher indigenous practices rather than listen to their voices. It has transformed the voices of peoples into texts, which it has then organised into tables in an attempt to explain their actions by attributing them to underlying structures of which they remain unaware. By objectifying peoples, it has reduced indigenous practices to something other than themselves, interpreting them as symbols of hidden meanings or as manifestations of unconscious structures. This act of objectification points to the colonial dimension of knowledge, as it reproduces the hierarchical structure that makes European ‘science’ a forum for the unveiling of indigenous societies[78].’
One of the questions that will thus arise when studying oral African societies is this: how can we avoid turning voices into text? This poses a real challenge for established academic disciplines, given how closely they are linked to the written word… The anthropological endeavour and any scientific approach must therefore be taken for what they are: translations. That is to say, interpretations that may give rise to error but, when successful, enable realities to be shifted from one order of knowledge to another. And place us squarely within epistemic plurality.
“There is, therefore, an act of translation at the heart of anthropology, because there is a systematic transformation of indigenous speech into a text intended not to think alongside indigenous peoples or to engage in dialogue with them, but to produce knowledge aimed primarily at other anthropologists, in accordance with the academic codes of writing and legitimisation that originated in Western Europe[79].”
How, then, can we develop the humanities and scientific knowledge in Africa in a way that does not replicate the colonial approach of the Western humanities, which has consisted of speaking about others rather than with them? How can we develop a scientific discourse that does not address an audience of peers exclusively, at the cost of cognitive distortion? How can scientific discourse respect and follow the ways in which societies have encoded their own knowledge and know-how? In what ways would a path that followed these diverse methods, specific to different African societies, of encoding their knowledge and know-how alter the way science is conducted and scientific discourse produced?
Without answering these questions immediately, it is important to understand that interpreting African realities from within Africa necessarily leads to a re-examination of the categories usually employed to understand them – either to reject them if they prove ineffective, or to rework them from within and profoundly alter our understanding of them. This is the work, for example, that several thinkers (anthropologists, philosophers, etc.) have undertaken with the concept of animism, which has distinct colonial origins. Without going into detail about these works, we can nevertheless briefly mention two of them: those of Harry Garuba and Marshall Sahlins. Let us begin with the latter.
In *An Enchanted World*[80], Marshall Sahlins aims to ‘revolutionise an obsolete anthropology’[81]. Drawing on Karl Jaspers’ analysis of what he calls the Axial Age[82], Marshall Sahlins distinguishes between two types of societies, based on their relationship to the divine: those in a relationship of immanence and those in a relationship of transcendence. In the latter, the divine has abandoned the earth to humans, who are ‘now free to create their own institutions by their own means, for their own ends[83]’. The majority of humanity lives in immanent societies, whereas 2,500 years ago, “the civilisations that spread between the 8th and 3rd centuries BCE from Greece, the Near East, northern India and China marked the starting point of a revolution still underway on a global scale[84]”, the Axial Revolution, reinforced by the “disenchantment of the modern world[85]”, which appears as the “second Axial Age” during which the West produced a series of transcendent categories: politics and religion were understood separately, and the economy emerged. Science takes “shape at the same time as ‘nature’ as a set of distinct laws explaining celestial and terrestrial movements (see Newton’s Principia in 1687) with a radical distinction between a ‘subject’ and an external ‘object’ (according to Descartes’ Meditations on First Philosophy, 1641[86]”. In fact, “’nature’ is part of the appropriation of the world by transcendentalism; it is what remains when the divinity and its cohorts (angels, saints, deceased human elect) move towards a supernatural ‘other world’[87]”.
Finally, ‘Europe’s expansion and its encounter with immanentist societies at the beginning of the modern period led to the emergence of “culture” as an autonomous sphere.[88] ’ This axial revolution has significant epistemological consequences: in addition to the nature/culture divide upon which the Western humanities are founded, as well as the separation of the natural sciences from the human sciences and the aforementioned distinction between subject and object, we are witnessing a proliferation of dualisms and binary ontological oppositions, such as those between the spiritual and the material, the natural and the supernatural, humans and spirits, and so on. What must be understood is that ‘in an enchanted universe, the natural/supernatural distinction makes no sense[89]’ (‘From an ontological point of view, it has no place there. It belongs to the transcendental universe[90]. ”), and human society is always regarded as part of a much vaster cosmic society (which is important to bear in mind when considering ecological issues as well as the definition of policies and ethics of relationality). Now, “all over the world, anthropologists are calling for us to move beyond this perspective of a society by and for itself, to move beyond the usual anthropocentrism, and instead to integrate this human order into the universal order[91]”. This allows Marshall Sahlins, for example, to argue against a whole body of classical anthropological and historical literature that the concept of the state is not alien to many non-Western societies, including African ones. But it applies differently to societies, by incorporating their cosmic dimension. This leads him to conclude that a genuine revolution in anthropological knowledge is necessary:
‘We need, in anthropology, something akin to a Copernican revolution: a shift from a view of human society placed at the centre of a universe onto which it projects its own forms – that is to say, conventional transcendentalist wisdom – to an immanentist perspective, namely the reality, ethnographic reality of human dependence on a power, an all-encompassing force capable of giving and taking life, and which are, in their essence, beings like themselves, reigning over earthly existence. Something akin to a state, a cosmic state, and the general condition of humanity – even in the state of nature[92].’
This involves trying to:
‘to describe the cultural practices of peoples through their own ontologies. This is in itself an implicit critique of much of the ethnographic literature, which employs a fallacious conceptual framework composed almost equally of transcendentalist fallacies and colonialist condescension. The result is an anthropology that disfigures both the discipline and the cultures it describes by presenting, in an insulting manner, people’s mentalities as nothing more than a mistaken conception of reality. Not that ethnographers are ill-intentioned; quite the contrary. In most cases, they care about the well-being of the people they study — it is almost a vocation and, in a sense, part of their intellectual background. But an all too common consequence, even in the best works, is that they reduce the significant relationships of a culture of immanence to the level of comfortable ramblings about an objective reality—a world without gods—thus turning their culture into a fictional representation of our own[93].’
This flawed anthropological interpretation has reduced non-Western ways of being-in-the-world to mere beliefs. Yet ‘ethnographic “belief” is often a questioning of what people know[94]’. So much so that ‘anthropologists are quick to use the verb “to believe” and say that people “believe” something only when they themselves do not believe it[95]’. This leads to the conclusion that:
‘Rather than being a particular way of being in the world, the assertion of God’s existence is treated as a theoretical statement about the world, placed on the same footing as propositions concerning nature. It can therefore be dismissed on the basis of its comparison with propositions from the natural sciences or, conversely, be regarded as compatible with scientific discoveries and thus valued[96].”
Marshall Sahlins adds:
“Another term that deserves to be consigned to oblivion is ‘myth’, when used to refer to narratives that people regard as sacred truths but which European languages dismiss as mere fiction[97].”
Aware of the axial evolution of certain societies, including Western society—the very context in which the discipline of anthropology emerged—it is therefore important to avoid blindly applying binary oppositions that do not necessarily hold true in non-Western societies, such as the natural/supernatural dichotomy or the subject/object dichotomy. The former is readily used to describe various African anthropological realities, particularly when discussing certain endogenous forms of knowledge that engage in a continuous re-enchantment of the world, including by absorbing and transforming modernist epistemology in situations of epistemic plurality[98], whilst the latter, at the heart of modern epistemology, is not necessarily relevant to the core of animist epistemology[99]. According to Harry Garuba, understanding the latter requires stepping outside – if indeed that is possible – not only modernist language but also the Western order of knowledge centred around a linear conception of time. Following the work of Nurit Bird-David, Harry Garuba distinguishes between modernist epistemology and animist epistemology. The former, modernist epistemology, is based on a totalising system of separate entities, apprehended from a detached perspective. It treats knowledge as a representation of the world, unlike the latter, animist epistemology, according to which knowledge is the capacity to be in the world in relation to others. It is an understanding of reality from a perspective that is not detached or separate (which distinguishes subject and object) but connected. For animist epistemology, knowledge is not limited to information. It implies a way of being. This way of being is established by the relationship between the knowing subject and the object or known subject. The knowing subject is therefore always engaged in an ethical framework. Another point to highlight: Marylin Strathern, a British anthropologist on whom Nurit Bird-David draws, emphasises that in modern epistemology, the notion of a person is linked to that of an individual. The irreducible nature of the individual is a particularly modernist notion. Whereas in animist epistemology, a person is any entity constituted by its relationships with others and enhanced by their interactions. The person objectifies relationships and makes them known. This is what Strathern – and, following her, Bird-David – calls the ‘dividual’, in contrast to the Euro-American ‘individual’[100]. A dividual is therefore a person constituted by relationships. Nurit Bird-David explains that when I individualise a human being, I am aware of what they are in themselves. If I dividualise them, I am aware of what connects me to them. The self-thinking person does not perceive reality through dichotomies (human/non-human, matter/spirit…) but dividualises reality: that is to say, they enter into a relationship because what matters is the ‘we’ they can form with others. Thus, in contrast to ‘I am, therefore I think’ stands ‘I connect, therefore I am’. Or to put it another way, ‘I am because we are’. (Ubuntu).
Finally, the last point this preliminary study wishes to address is a feature of Western/modernist epistemology that is so significant it is often overlooked as such and, on the contrary, regarded as a universalist model: the central role of reason. In her book The Ecological Crisis of Reason, Val Plumwood argues that one of the defining features of Western modernist epistemology is its ‘rationalist hubris’[101]. It is even one of the ‘many blind spots of an anthropocentric culture’[102], founded on the nature/culture distinction. She defines rationalism as a “cult of reason that places a specific and limited form of reason on a pedestal, whilst, by contrast, devaluing the antagonistic sphere of nature and corporeality[103]”, of emotion and attachment. This heightened rationalism has become a “vehicle of domination and death”, and Val Plumwood calls for a return to a use of reason that is a “vehicle of liberation and life[104]”. This hyper-rationalism, based on human exceptionalism (the notion that humans alone possess logos and are thus distinct from the rest of the animal world), has ultimately forged an anthropocentric culture that emphasises human centrality and superiority, thereby establishing an instrumental relationship with the rest of the living world. Not only do “dualism and rationalism form a system of ideas that justifies and naturalises the domination of people and things by a privileged class identified with reason[105]” to the detriment of beings identified with nature (women, Black indigenous peoples, slaves, animals…), but they also constitute an epistemology that devalues modes of learning and understanding reality that do not pass through reason, but through the body, the senses, emotions, etc. This epistemology sustains a monologue of reason with itself and is ultimately based on a ‘monological rationality[106]’ ’ and promotes an economy devoid of empathy that ‘seeks to order the world rationally by forcing it to conform to its doctrines – which claim a monopoly on rationality – and to its universal “laws”, always favouring pure theory at the expense of impure reality, whatever the consequences[107] “and by attempting to organise Nature rationally. Val Plumwood describes this empathy-deprived rationality as ‘sado-impassive’. It values a scientific model based on ‘personal objectivity, emotional neutrality and ethical-political detachment[108] ’; which, in some cases, far from being ‘an admirable character trait, [is] the expression of a moral failure. In science as in the marketplace, detachment and neutrality are nothing but a myth[109]”.
‘The idea that objectivity is opposed to the body and emotions (regarded as subcategories of nature) is deeply rooted in the history of rationalist thought. In Platonic rationalism, knowledge is attained in spite of the body, which is perceived as an obstacle to learning. Subsequently, in Cartesian rationalism, the ideal of objective knowledge implies not only that it must be free from doubt, but also that it must be free from the body and from the illusions, weaknesses, obstacles and personal or emotional ties that are inseparable from it. Knowledge, understood in opposition to the body as ‘pure thought’, compels us to set aside ‘all the distractions and passions that obscure thought’. From this rationalist perspective, the obstacles to knowledge include not only animality and the body itself (both associated with the feminine), but also material reality, practical activity, change, emotions, sympathy and subjectivity.
As Evelyn Fox Keller observes, the emphasis placed on this concept of impartiality or detachment imposes a rigid barrier between the subject and the object, which excludes any form of care, sympathy or engagement with the object of knowledge. From this perspective, forming connections is a source of error, and the object of knowledge must always remain alien to the knower. These forms of knowledge entail monological relationships. In particular, they imply a complete separation between the knower and the known object, for whilst knowers are entitled to change others so that they conform to their desires, it is, on the other hand, inconceivable that they themselves should be transformed by those others. The other can be fully known, even in the absence of their consent. In other words, knowledge can be wrested from them, which is a way of exercising power over them. The refusal of recognition and respect (conceived as forms of commitment), and the adoption of amoral forms of knowledge that exclude any ethical consideration towards the world, pave the way for the mechanisation and instrumentalisation of objects of study. The exclusion of care and respect from the foundations of knowledge imposes an instrumentalist policy within which the object of knowledge is reduced to the status of a means in the service of the ends pursued by the knower[110].’
He added:
‘In the absence of care and respect for the subject matter under study, and of responsibility towards those who will be affected by the acquisition of knowledge, it is inevitable that the epistemological relationship will be structured in such a way that the objects of knowledge are reduced to the status of mere means at the service of those who know, or of the ends of power which they will ultimately serve. The political dimension of this type of attitude becomes clear when the object of knowledge is itself under threat, particularly when it is threatened for rationalistic reasons and the threat it faces stems directly from the knowledge acquired about it. Consider, for example, the attitude of anthropologists who adhere to emotional neutrality and do not ask themselves whether the indigenous peoples they study might be affected by the way in which knowledge about them is acquired, or the attitude of the naturalist whose work opens the door to the destructive exploitation of what he studies. Power always rushes into the vacuum created by detachment[111].’
This stands in contrast to the animist epistemological approach described by Harry Garuba. In recent decades, a re-examination of scientific and anthropological approaches has led to greater consideration being given to the position of the knowing subject, who plays an active role in the research and selection of observed data, as well as in the construction of knowledge. Yet ‘the radical separation between the subject of knowledge and its object lies at the epistemological foundation of monological science, the commodification of nature and capitalism[112]’. Awareness of this particular feature of modernist epistemology leads us to understand, conversely, that the object of knowledge is not devoid of agency or intentionality. Moving beyond modernist epistemology—or, at the very least, understanding its limitations—calls for the recognition of the intentionality of the external world and its role in the production of knowledge. Whilst modern science has stripped matter of agency, spirit and intentionality, the task is therefore to ‘reanimate nature’[113] and to reposition ourselves within an enchanted universe by understanding that the concept of anthropomorphism, often applied to non-Western, animist or totemic societies, ‘aims to discredit any description presenting non-human others as intentional agents’[114]. But it is also a matter of challenging the great divide within Western epistemology between, on the one hand, nature and the science that produces knowledge about it, and on the other, culture, which falls within the humanities (philosophy, then the social sciences). This great divide has led to the expulsion of the natural realm from the domain of ethics. “The erosion of the human/nature dualism also allows us to realise that our relationships with non-humans are as much a matter of ethics as they are of ecology[115].”
An excessive reliance on reason alone leads to the myth of an autonomous reason and an autonomous human being, without realising that human beings are always already embedded within a social and ecological context. Historically, however, this ‘autonomous subject’ has only been so through the appropriation of the labour and labour power of ‘others’, that is to say, women (domestic labour), slaves, colonised peoples and workers (labourers). This is the homo oeconomicus[116] described by Sylvia Wynter.
In the face of this monological rationality, Val Plumwood invites us to recognise that ‘in these contexts of interdependence, it is dialogical strategies, not monological ones, that are rational. Their aim is not to maximise the interests of each individual, but to enable different people to negotiate with one another and to flourish through reciprocity[117]. ’ Ultimately, it is rational models centred on care and the affirmation of life that liberate humanity from the self-absorption born of rationalist culture and the Western humanities. The latter have contributed to the fact that:
‘The dominant Western culture is androcentric, Eurocentric, ethnocentric and anthropocentric. From a historical perspective, it is also ratio-centric, insofar as reason is regarded, particularly in the rationalist tradition, as the common characteristic of the dominant pole of all hierarchies derived from these various forms of centrism, the dominated Other being, by contrast, defined by their lack of reason[118].’
However, ‘this rationality is the antithesis of reason[119]’, which, on the contrary, invites us to engage in dialogue with the other, to recognise the other as a fellow human being, to be prudent—that is to say, modest and sensitive—and to understand that human beings always live in an ecologically and socially ‘embedded[120]’ world.
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[1] See, in particular, Michel Foucault, *The Order of Things: An Archaeology of the Human Sciences*, Paris: Gallimard, 1966; *The Archaeology of Knowledge*, Paris: Gallimard, 1969; *The Will to Knowledge*, Paris: Gallimard, 1976.
[2] See Mamadou Diouf, Africa in the Age of the World, Rot-Bo-Krik, 2023.
[3] François Hartog, *Distinguishing Humanity: Humans, Humanisms, Inhumans*, Gallimard, 2024.
[4] Ibid., p. 51.
[5] A man, not merely a human being. Women – just like slaves – are excluded from citizenship.
[6] Ibid., p. 101
[7] Ibid., p. 93.
[8] Ibid., p. 94.
[9] Ibid., p. 97.
[10] Ibid., p. 103. Emphasis added.
[11] Ibid., p. 119.
[12] See, in particular, Hegel, Lectures on the History of Philosophy, [1832].
[13] See, in particular, François Hartog, op. cit., p. 168.
[14] Ibid., p. 120
[15] François-Xavier Fauvelle-Aymar, ‘The Khoisan: between science and spectacle’, in Nicolas Bancel, Pascal Blanchard, Gilles Boëtsch, Éric Deroo and Sandrine Lemaire (eds.), Human Zoos: The Age of Human Exhibitions, Paris, La Découverte/Poche, 2004, p. 112.
[16] François-Xavier Fauvelle, In Search of the Ideal Savage, Paris, Seuil, 2017, p. 68.
[17] Ibid., pp. 68–69.
[18] V.Y. Mudimbe, *The Invention of Africa: Gnosis, Philosophy and the Order of Language*, Indiana University Press, 1988.
[19] See Marc Crépon, *Les Géographies de l’esprit*, Paris, Payot, 1996; Séverine Kodjo-Grandvaux, *Philosophies africaines*, Paris, Présence africaine, 2nd edition, 2025.
[20] François Hartog, op. cit., p. 129. See also p. 173.
[21] Ibid., p. 171.
[22] Ibid., p. 172.
[23] For a critique of the idea of the ‘Greek miracle’, see Fabien Eboussi Boulaga, *La Crise du Muntu*, Paris, Présence Africaine, 1977; Cheikh Anta Diop, *Nations nègres et culture*, Paris, Présence Africaine, 1955, and *Antériorité des civilisations nègres. Myth or Historical Truth?, Paris, Présence Africaine, 1993; Nadia Yala Kisukidi, ‘The “Greek Miracle”’, TUMULTES, issue 52, 2019; V.Y. Mudimbe, The Invention of Africa, op. cit.
[24] On the development of the conception and practice of philosophy, see Pierre Hadot, *What is Ancient Philosophy?*, Paris: Gallimard, 1995.
[25] On this subject, see in particular Catherine König-Pralong, *La colonie philosophique. Écrire l’histoire de la philosophie aux XVIIIe et XIXe siècles* (Paris: Éditions de l’EHESS, 2019)
[26] Ibid., p. 16.
[27] Ibid., p. 16.
[28] Ibid., p. 16.
[29] Ibid., p. 86.
[30] Ibid., p. 150.
[31] Ibid., p. 87
[32] Ibid., p. 16.
[33] Ibid., p. 16.
[34] Ibid., p. 12.
[35] Ibid., p. 41.
[36] Ibid., p. 15.
[37] Ibid., p. 49.
[38] Hegel, Lectures on the History of Philosophy, Vrin, 2004, p. 159.
[39] Catherine König-Pralong, op. cit., p. 137.
[40] Ibid., p. 153.
[41] Ibid., p. 164.
[42] Ibid., p. 81.
[43] Ibid., p. 81.
[44] Ibid., p. 81.
[45] Ibid., p. 111.
[46] See Séverine Kodjo-Grandvaux, op. cit.
[47] Catherine König-Pralong, op. cit., p. 83.
[48] Ibid., pp. 83–84.
[49] Ibid., p. 14.
[50] Ibid., p. 181.
[51] On this issue, see Talal Asad, *Critical Tradition: After the Colonial Encounter* [1973], translated by Philippe Blouin and Grégoire Langouet, Brussels, Vues de l’esprit, 2023; Georges Balandier, ‘La Situation coloniale’ (1951), in Cahiers Internationaux de Sociologie, January–June 2001, NEW SERIES, Vol. 110; Gérard Leclerc, Anthropologie et colonialisme. An Essay on the History of Africanism, Paris, Fayard, 1996; Séverine Kodjo-Grandvaux, op. cit.
[52] On philosophy as a colonial science, see Fabien Eboussi Boulaga’s analysis, op. cit.
[53] Ibid., p. 82.
[54] Ibid., p. 82.
[55] Ibid., p. 82.
[56] See Emmanuelle Sibeud, An Imperial Science for Africa? The Construction of Africanist Knowledge in France (1878–1930), Paris, Éditions de l’EHESS.
[57] On this subject, see Dominique Colas, *Races and Racism from Plato to Derrida: A Critical Anthology*, Paris: Plon, 2004.
[58] Charles W. Mills, *The Racial Contract*, translated from the English by Aly Ndiaye, Montreal, Mémoire d’encirer, 2023.
[59] Ibid., p. 41.
[60] Ibid., p. 43
[61] “White supremacy is the political system which, though never named, has made the modern world what it is today.”, p. 31.
[62] ‘Whiteness’ refers to white people’s acceptance of the racial order established to ensure white supremacy.
[63] Ibid., p. 52.
[64] Ibid., pp. 53–54.
[65] Ibid., p. 86
[66] V.Y. Mudimbe, *The Invention of Africa*, op. cit., quoted by Charles W. Mills, op. cit., p. 87
[67] Charles W. Mills, op. cit., p. 88
[68] Ibid., p. 89
[69] Ibid., p. 88.
[70] Ibid., p. 150
[71] Maurice Merleau-Ponty, In Praise of Philosophy, Paris, Gallimard, 1953.
[72] On the exclusion of women from philosophy, see in particular Annabelle Bonnet, *La barbe ne fait pas le philosophe. Les femmes et la philosophie en France (1880–1949)*, Paris, CNRS Edition, 2022.
[73] V.Y. Mudimbe, *The Smell of the Father: An Essay on the Limits of Science and Life in Black Africa*, Paris, Présence africaine, 1982.
[74] On indiscipline, see Pierre-Philippe Fraiture and V.Y. Mudimbe, *Undisciplined Africanism*, Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2013.
[75] See Walter Mignolo, ‘The Geopolitics of Sensibility and Knowledge: (De)coloniality, Border Thinking and Epistemological Disobedience’, Mouvements, 73, 2013, pp. 181–190.
[76] Mohamed Amer Meziane, *Au bord des mondes. Vers une anthropologie métaphysique*, Brussels, Vues de l’esprit, 2023, p. 24.
[77] Ibid., p. 26.
[78] Ibid., p. 30.
[79] Ibid., p. 61.
[80] Marshall Sahlins, *An Enchanted World: An Anthropology of Most of Humanity*, French translation by Abel Gerschenfeld, Paris, Gallimard, 2026.
[81] Ibid., p. 9.
[82] Karl Jaspers, The Origin and Meaning of History, translated from the German by Hélène Naef, with the collaboration of Wolfgang Achterberg, Paris, Plon, 1954.
[83] Marshall Sahlins, op. cit., p. 14.
[84] Ibid., p. 14.
[85] Max Weber, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, translated by Isabelle Kalinowski, Paris, Flammarion, 2017.
[86] Marshall Sahlins, op. cit., p. 19.
[87] Ibid., p. 61.
[88] Ibid., p. 19.
[89] Ibid., p. 59.
[90] Ibid., p. 60.
[91] Ibid., p. 176.
[92] Ibid., p. 192.
[93] Ibid., pp. 26–27.
[94] Ibid., p. 28.
[95] Ibid., p. 29.
[96] Mohamed Amer Meziane, op. cit., pp. 96–97.
[97] Marshall Sahlins, op. cit., p. 29.
[98] See Harry Garuba, ‘Explorations in Animist Materialism: Notes on Reading/Writing African Literature, Culture, and Society’, in Public Culture 15(2), 2003, pp. 261–285.
[99] See Harry Garuba, ‘On Animism, Modernity/Colonialism, and the African Order of Knowledge: Provisional Reflections’, in e-flux journal #36 – July 2012.
[100] See Nurit Bird-David, ‘Animism Revisited: Personhood, Environment, and Relational Epistemology’, in Current Anthropology, 40, 1, 67–91, 1999, p. 72.
[101] Val Plumwood, *The Ecological Crisis of Nature*, [2002], translated from the English by Pierre Madelin, Paris-Marseille, PUF-Wildproject, 2024, p. 34.
[102] Ibid., p. 34.
[103] Ibid., p. 34.
[104] Ibid., p. 37.
[105] Ibid., pp. 60–61.
[106] Ibid., p. 64.
[107] Ibid., p. 72.
[108] Ibid., p. 103.
[109] Ibid., p. 203.
[110] Ibid., pp. 104–106.
[111] Ibid., p. 106.
[112] Ibid., p. 111.
[113] See Val Plumwood, *Reanimating Nature*, Paris, PUF, 2020.
[114] Val Plumwood, *The Crisis…*, p. 132.
[115] Ibid., p. 123.
[116] See Katherine McKittrick (ed.), Sylvia Wynter: On Being Human as Praxis, Durham and London, Duke University Press, 2015.
[117] Val Plumwood, *The Crisis…*, p. 89.
[118] Ibid., p. 219.
[119] Ibid., p. 249.
[120] Ibid., p. 466.