ON WHAT GROUNDS DID WE CONCLUDE THAT CULTURE IS NOT PHILOSOPHY? (Paid)
The age-long relationship between philosophy and culture or culture and philosophy has refused to be amenable to holistic and exhaustive interpretation and understanding. There appears to be an agreement among scholars that while culture is inevitable in the formation, formulation and emergence of a philosophy, philosophy-itself, it is argued, is not and cannot be culture. Sometimes, it is put simpliciter as “philosophy can be culture, but culture cannot be philosophy”. This paper sets out to achieve three aims: one, to show that the issue of a culture not being a philosophy while a philosophy can be a culture would collapse if subjected to critical analysis. Secondly, the paper argues that the thesis that “culture cannot be philosophy” was a fallout from what we have come to know as “The Great Debate” on the existence of African Philosophy, it shows how the cause and course of that debate, pursued through radical (re)interpretations and definitions of concepts and terms, resulted in the denigration of Africa?s heritage. After, all, how can a race said to possess “pre-logical mentality” produce a philosophy via a reflection on her history and culture? Finally, the paper submits that the idea of a “cultural philosophy” is actually a tautology since there is no “cultureless” or “uncultured” philosophy, the paper employs expository, analytical, and critical methods and then, via a polemic, the paper argues that when recourse is made to the interconnectedness and interrelatedness of reality and to the history and nature of philosophy itself, the claim that “culture is not philosophy” become both meaningless and insignificant!
Keywords: conclude, culture, grounds, paid, philosophy