Hermeneutics and African Philosophy

Hermeneutics and African Philosophy 18 mei 2015

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Hermeneutics in intercultural horizons using H.G. Gadamer. Applied to the problem of African philosophy. Prof. Herman Lodewyckx, Antwerpen

«Wer versteht, ist schon immer einbezogen in ein Geschehen, durch das sich Sinnvolles geltend macht» (WM, S. 465)1

Dedicated to the memory of

Prof. Dr.Em.Alphonse J. Smetc.p. (1925-‐2015) 1. Hermeneutics and Africa: an introduction 2. Gadamer’s hermeneutics in the present situation of African philosophy 3. Some consequences for African philosophy 4. Conclusion 5. References 6. Abstract 1. Hermeneutics and Africa: an introduction This presentation starts from a confrontation with the phenomenon, known as "African Philosophy" which I got to know during my stay in Zaire, now the Democratic Republic of Congo, where I taught philosophy of history (modern period to the present day), but where I could use my experience of my master's degree in hermeneutics of H.G. Gadamer when I was asked to teach a course of hermeneutics to students in philosophy. Surprisingly, since such courses didn’t exist in my philosophical education at the philosophy department at Louvain in the 70s. But very quickly the importance of such a course was clear in an African context, where I had learned of another amazing thing called 'African philosophy', taught by my fellow philosophy professors as well at the Ngidi-Seminary in Boma, as at the philosophy department of the Faculty of Theology in Kinshasa and at the philosophy department of Lubumbashi. In fact: the whole issue of the "African philosophy" can be summarized in as an hermeneutic or interpretation issue. The question of hermeneutics is not alien to the history of philosophy in the West. The question of interpretation is already at the heart of philosophy, or as HGGadamer wrote: "Hermeneutics is an universal aspect of philosophy. It is not limited to the methodical basis of the sciences of the mind. "(VM, p. 501). One can even say that the history of philosophy as a whole and globaly is a story of the efforts of interpretation and

1 Celui qui comprend est d’emblée pris dans un advenir où s’impose quelque chose qui a du sens – VM p. 516. (VM = Vérité et Methode; WM = Wahrheit und Methode)


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understanding of reality, often heard in global concepts of ‘world’ (cosmos-chaos), of ‘man’, and ‘god’ or the sacred (R. Otto). I say the ‘efforts’. It's like the word 'philosophy' which found its linguistic origin in the Greek language where 'philo - sophia' is not wisdom itself, but the quest, research, desire, love for wisdom. Philosophy is situated between the mytho-theological discourse and the scientific discourse: one tries to interpret / understand / explain the world and man (as such or in its origins, in his creation) through stories, called myths in which a god or gods are involved as creators. Philosophy took over from the 'theo-logia’ with Socrates, Plato and Aristotle to continue the search of man's salvation outside the mytho-theological discourse. The foundations of modern scientific discourse ('scientia' in Latin is 'knowledge'), have been formulated by the English empiricist philosopher Francis Bacon (sixteenth century) in his 'Novum Organon', in opposition to the ‘Organon’ of Aristotle, but Descartes, Copernicus, Galileo, Newton, ea pushed the science to a mathematization and mechanization of the world, which, according to Laplace's answer to Napoleon, no longer needs the theo-logical assumption for the explanation of its cosmology, although still necessary to Newton. And we also know the laws of the three states that underlie scientific positivism of Auguste Comte in the 19th century (the mytho-theological stage, the metaphysical-philosophical state and the positive-scientific state - that would make obsolete theology and philosophy. His stance has its analogue in the Vienna Circle in the 20th Century that largely influence the Anglo-Saxon philosophy with Wittgenstein, Russell, Moore, Hilbert, and Popper. But the 'big' speeches, the modern 'grand narratives', both ideological and scientific fell to pieces: we speak of spalling or chunking of single speech. We entered a "postmodern condition", as in the title of the book by Jean-François Lyotard in 1979, with the subtitle "Report on knowledge" and thus sets a new philosophical movement, though also strongly contested. Even the history of science shows us "structures of Scientific Revolutions" according to the American historian Thomas Kuhn, in his book published in 1962, which introduced the concept of 'paradigm' to show us that a scientist never looks at the reality with a completely objective or neutral eye. Thus, the 'truth' of many discourses and stories has become an object of suspicion, in the words of P. Ricoeur, who sees three major masters of suspicion: Marx, Nietzsche, Freud, taken up and systematized by later thinkers of the German Frankfurt School and by philosophers of the years '68: Althusser, Foucault and Lacan and many others.


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Already in his little essay "On the Essence of Truth '(Vom Wesen der Wahrheit) of 1930, Heidegger invites us to reflect on the truth as ‘aleitheia': un-veiling, but it is at the same time also cupping, hiding clouding of being: ‘Ent-birgung – Ver-bergung - Verborgenheit’. All this probably explains the relativism that prevails in our societies ('everything goes') and the renunciation of the search for THE truth or THE wisdom. All that remains is 'this is my opinion, and I shareit ' to quote a pal at the time. Is this the end of philosophy in general in our world? in our societies? in our schools and universities? I note already now, that all these evolutions are leading the way and the voice for African philosophers to affirm the possibility of an African scientificity or African philosophy / epistemology, standing out of THE science or THE philosophy, which can be only seen as specific Western, even Eurocentric, representations, but certainly not as universal ones. Next to the western paradigm, one can perfectly support an African paradigm to explain or interpret the scientific, ideological and political situation in Africa. African postcolonialism found so his reverse in Western postmodernism. Is this not already an issue among the ancient Greek philosophers to question the discrepancy between a statement, that what is 'said' and 'reality' while seeking 'the truth'? The Greek philosophers wanted to make a clear distinction between 'philosophy' and 'myths'. The question is clear: what is being said in these myths? Can we say the same thing without reference to gods? We know this from the book of Aristotle's Peri Hermeneia or 'About interpretation' (in further reference to the god Hermes, the messenger god that interprets the commands of other gods). This issue will be taken up during the Middle Ages, and still later on by Christian theologians for the interpretation of biblical texts. One question they had in common with their Jewish and Muslims colleagues in Spain, during the famous golden age: how to interpret the (holy) Writings: can we deduce a purely philosophical meaning of these texts? We know that the four schools of Islamic interpretations were quickly completed because thought as dangerous for leaving a gap between a theological interpretation to the faithful and a philosophical interpretation (thus more secular) for educated or insiders. Jewish interpretations were always more personal, though Spinoza (and others) was still excluded from the community for heresy. We also know that the Christian church had to fight many heresies to safeguard its unity, but lost that fight with the Orthodox schism in 1054


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and with the rise of Protestantism in the 16th century where Luther preached: sola scriptura: the Writing is sufficient in itself as an interpretative authority. We do not need other theological or ecclesiastical authorities, as was the case in the Catholic Church, to understand the Holy Writings. But we often forget that it has rightly generated a lot of interpretations that often lead to schisms and Christian sects, as we see the result these days especially in African countries, where at every corner of the street there is another church with his truth of the Gospel or the Bible. The situation is the same for almost all other religions: Islam, Judaism, Buddhism, ... passing from ‘fundamentalist’ interpretations to say 'liberal'interpretations. In modern times, and under the growing influence of so-called positive sciences, a cleavage occurs between the ‘accurate’ interpretations of the world by these positive sciences and the interpretations of 'human' or 'social' sciences. In the 19th century this cleavage pushed Wilhelm Dilthey to introduce the distinction between "erklären" (explained by a chain of causes and consequences) and "Verstehen" (understanding through reasoning) to also legitimize 'human' science (Geisteswissenschaften). But this distinction has proved untenable. Even in the so called ‘positive’ sciences, there is a part of 'verstehen' or 'understanding', if not already in the choice of axioms and postulates that are the basis of their statements. Interpretation is a universal phenomenon we meet everywhere: in case law, in literature, in art, in poetry, in myth or in (holy) Writings, and even in the same so-called positive sciences advocating to give us the objectivity of reality by physical or mathematical laws. It was the genius of H.G. Gadamer to introduce us in the hermeneutical fact that exceeds a simple methodology consisting in a few rules or standards of interpretation that will ultimately lead us to THE only truth, as a final result, or in THE interpretation. Gadamer offers us another ‘lecture’ of the word 'interpretation': it is no more interpretation as a definitive result of an intellectual process, but we must take ‘interpretation’ in its active, dynamic, sense, marked by the ending ‘- ation’ which - etymologically - is derived from' action ': interpretation should be conceived as an endless process by which any interpretation as a result, is only one step in this long process that Gadamer calls 'Wirkungsgeschichte' an almost untranslatable term, but rendered in French as 'the principle of the history of the action (or effect')


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(VM, p 322;.. WM, p 284). It is therefore important to distinguish between interpretation as a result and interpretation as an interpretational' activity by a ‘reader’ of a literary or artistic work. 2. Gadamer’s hermeneutics in the present situation of African philosophy From the introduction of 'Truth and Method', Gadamer tells us:

The problem of hermeneutics oversteps the limits set by the idea of method, as conceived by modern science. The understanding and interpretation of texts are not only a matter of science but raises of course within the general experience that man makes of the world "(VM, p. 11).

Hermeneutics – as for Gadamer - is not intended to build a knowledge that meets the requirements of methodical science, but it is a knowledge that corresponds to the human experience, expressed by the 'Geisteswissenschaften', the human or social sciences, and is an existential experience of its finitude. Gadamer take experiences of interpretation of art (first part) and of the human sciences (second part) with history and philosophy as a starting point. In the second part of this part, he develops "the outlines of a theory of the hermeneutical experience" (VM, p. 286 ff.) The keywords here are "Wirkungsgeschichte" and "Horizontverschmelzung" (fusion of horizons). Already the translation of the first term is an issue. The French translation proposes: the principle of the history of the action (or influence), but Grondin (2006, p.57) refers to the history of the reception of a work or of works passed to posterity through history. So he proposed “working history”. I think it still offers too little of the dynamics of the receiving of a work in history, a dynamic that continues with the 'reading' or the interpretational activity the 'reader'. Perhaps one should speak of an ‘active historicity’, or of ‘the historical action’ or ‘historical process’ of a work. Too often, one wonders: what is the author wanted to express in a text or a work of art, suggesting that the author holds THE significance, THE sense, and therefore THE truth of his work. The objective interpretation is done only if we highlighted this original meaning, owned by the author.


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This involves historical research, psychological analysis, a genealogy or an archeology of the meaning to use the philosophical language of Nietzsche and Foucault. However, one who has already produced an artistic or literary work, knows that the meaning leaves him from the moment of the publication in which the work is - literally - delivered to the public. Comments from all sides see meanings that the author would never have seen nor wanted. In the 19th century, perhaps people was relying on the masters of literary or artistic criticism for the exact interpretation. In the 21st century, the social media show that everyone delivers his or her opinion and the meaning given by the author is lost in the mass of diverse voices, both from 'experts' as from common people. In African philosophy, we take the example of the famous text of Father Tempels's Bantu Philosophy, published in 1949 by Présence Africaine in French but published as 'Bantu Philosophy' in English in 1956 by the same publishing house in Paris. Since its actual history is exemplary at different levels. Already the definite article in the French title has sparked so many comments we sometimes forget the original meaning that the author himself has given of this small book. It is thanks to the late prof. A.J. Smet that we have a critical edition of this work, because he at least understands the native – Dutch - language of Father Tempels, in which he published the book as the 'original' edition in 1946. One thus approaches himself maybe closer to the original ideas of Father Tempels, but can we restrict the meaning of its text to the 'original' text version or of the 'critical' one made by prof. Smet? We forget then that this text has resulted in many positive and negative reviews so that we can no longer have a neutral or objective reading of this text. It therefore had a 'Wirkungsgeschichte' or historical activity that will be ignored when one reads it while ignoring the historicity, or if one asked how this text can be "current" in the situation of contemporary Africa. A second idea of Gadamer that can help interpret and understand literary or artistic works is the idea of the fusion of horizons (Horizontverschmelzung). Indeed, in the interpretational activity there is a horizon of the interpreted work and there is the horizon of the interpretation of the reader: a literary or artistic work is received through various channels and it has been noticed or perceived. there are various reasons for the interest or disinterest when this work it 'appears' or 'unveils' itself to the ‘reader’ or interpreter (Heidegger). The horizon of the ‘reader’ consists of the pre-judice, positive or negative pre-opinions. The reader is confronted by a work that submits a 'question'. The consciousness of the reader / interpreter is challenged to put his pre-


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judice under the criticism of the work itself. But let us stay clear: Gadamer says: never we will become masters of our prejudices, we never are completely transparent to ourselves or to be able to 'read' the work as such. This is an experience of the finitude of our ontological status of 'Human' beings. An interpretational ‘reading’ of an artistic or literary work presupposes that we realize our pre-judices, but also our inability to put them all quite clear. Each interpretational activity remains ambiguous in this regard. So no one will take a work as an object of interpretation without prejudices, spoken or unspoken, explicit or implicit. A text like the Bantu Philosophy of Tempels is never read without resonances of opinions surrounding this work throughout its historical activity. We heard about it and immediately ideas about Africa and philosophy resonate, ideas full of positive or negative bias, as we have had experiences with both: Africa, African people and of philosophy and philosophers. In any case, there is always a very strange issue: making conferences on African philosophy, many people, both in the West and in Africa, take the concept of "philosophy" almost always in a broad non-academic sense, and hope to hear "what Africans think exactly." Precisely such a misconception introduced by the work of Father Tempels and those - often called "the tempelsiens" - who return to Father Tempels’project for digging an unanimous philosophy of some people. Even the authors named the 'ethnophilosophes' by Marcian Towa and Paulin J. Hountondji, identify themselves with their original people, they seem to speak in their name: we Dogon, we Bambara, we Diola, we Igbo , we Wolof, we Bantu, ... That is why the Beninese philosopher prof. Paulin J. Hountondji wrote somewhere that

Ethnophilosophy is a projection of (subjective) ideas of an author in an anonymous and collective self-styled soul of the African man, who, later, will be presented as THE philosophy of THE Bantu, Dogon, Bambara and ... extrapolated to all African. The black man will be fixed in a dogmatic mythic and unchanging past. This makes an explicit and critical philosophy of individuals almost impossible. Suppose someone would dig up the philosophy of the Bretons, Flemings, Scots, ... it's a sterile and an alienating activity that does not serve the interests of Africans, but only those of elsewhere.


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Thus, the Bantu are not the author of the Philosophy of the Bantu, but it is father Tempels himself, and the author of the Bantu-Rwandese Philosophy, is none other than its author, Father Alexis Kagame. "Without any doubt, the problem of African ‘Philosophy’ refers us back to the problem of hermeneutics," wrote Hountondji (1976: 28, note 16.) (English 2e edition, p. 189)

The discourse of ethnophilosophers, be they European or African, offers us the baffling spectacle of an imaginary interpretation with no textual support, of a genuinely ‘free’ interpretation, inebriated and entirely at the mercy of the interpreter, a dizzy and unconscious freedom which takes itself to be translating a text which does not actually exist and which is therefore unaware of its own creativity. By this action the interpreter disqualifies himself from reaching any truth whatsoever, since truth requires that freedom be limited, that it bow to an order that is not purely imaginary and that it be aware both of this order and of its own margin of creativity. Truth is attainable only if the interpreter’s freedom is based on the nature of the text to be interpreted; it presupposes that the text and the interpreter’s discourse remain rigorously within the same category, i.e. the same univocal field. Aristotle’s doctrine of the ‘genera of being’ means just this.

Oddly enough if we apply this quote to the interpretational activity of Hountondji himself. He projects his own critics in the text of Tempels, who didn’t write the text in the '70s, but in the' 40s. The intellectual horizon of Hountondji is formed by his own academic training as a philosopher, particularly in Paris where he presented a doctoral dissertation on Husserl in 1970, and by the post-colonial period in Africa in general, but especially of the Marxist-Leninist regime his country, Benin (formerly Dahomey) from 1974 until 1990. So we better understand some of the more active contemporary African philosophers (ibid, p. 33):

Either way, Bantu ‘Philosophy’ is shown to be a myth. To destroy this myth once and for all, and to clear our conceptual ground for a genuine theoretical discourse – these are the tasks now awaiting African philosophers and scientists. (English 2e ed. p. 44)

and on page 37 (English 2e ed, p. 46):

… That the responsibility of African philosophers (and of all African scientists) extends far beyond the narrow limits of their discipline and that they cannot afford the luxury of self-‐satisfied apoliticism or quiescent complacency about the established disorder unless they deny themselves both as philosophers and


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as people. In other words, the theoretical liberation of philosophical discourse presupposes political liberation.

Let us now look at the other ‘horizon’, that of the author. A work (artistic or literary) does not appear as a thunderbolt from a clear sky. We can say that the author is the one who 'symbolizes' the spirit of his time (Zeitgeist!) By a work that we recognize to be the expression of its time, its surroundings, its community but so far it is not always accepted with complacency. It is sometimes the opposite. A work becomes 'classical' when it persists in history and built its actual historicity, also called 'tradition', to which the interpretations of 'readers' help in its formation and its legation to the new generations. "The horizon is the field of vision who understands and included everything we can see from a specific point" (VM p. 324) The (historical) horizon allows us to step into the shoes of the other for a better understanding, like when we are with someone in a conversation. This horizon is not closed. It is something in which we penetrate and that gradually changes from places with us. The historical horizon is always moving as Gadamer says. If we consider the "Bantu Philosophy" of Tempels, this book is the result of dissatisfaction of Tempels himself, with the colonial policy of the Belgian government in place, but also with the evangelizing work of the Church in his time . But he is not alone. The dissatisfaction reigns among his colleagues but also among the colonial as among the colonized. When he talks with the Bantu in his surroundings, they say, "Finally, someone who understands us" (4th evidence of the unedited 8th chapter). Even the term "philosophy" in the sometimes ambiguous meaning, was commonly used in ethnological publications of the time to indicate that there is a logic, a rationality underlying the customs, stories and customary laws, despite the negative vision created by the work of the French philosopher, Levy-Bruhl, who said that 'primitive' man have only a primitive mind, which is insufficient to philosophize. We know the genealogical complexity of the work of Tempels from small articles he wrote some years ago, but most from the correspondence he maintained with father Hulstaert. It makes us glimpse the discussion with other contemporaries, including E. Possoz who almost prompted him to write this book, which has done so much ink flowing. Despite harsh criticism from African authors like Hountondji and Towa, "Bantu Philosophy" has been seen as a 'political' document that caused the return of Father Tempels in Belgium ordered by both ecclesiastical and administrative authorities.


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The violent criticism of Hountondji, who wants to eliminate this text of Tempels out of the history of African philosophy, "because not written by an African" is in itself a questioning of the historical horizon of Hountondji. It is the refusal to enter into this fusion of horizons meant by Gadamer. It is the refusal to put hemselve in the place of another, to understand the other from his horizon, the refusal of dialogue that would bring in broad daylight the prejudices and previews of the interlocutors. Let us mention Gadamer at this crucial point:

.. A truly historical consciousness never loses sight of his own presence, so as to see itself and what is historically different in proper perspective ... We have ... the constant task to curb an hasty assimilation of the past to our own expectations of meaning. Only then we hear the voice of tradition, as can be heard in his own otherness. " (VM, p. 327)2

A particular point raised in the debate on African philosophy is the issue of languages. One can easily recognize the problem Gadamer expressed in the third part of Truth and Method on language, the mediator of the hermeneutical experience. Understanding is a linguistic process: understanding the meaning of a work can not be done in a language (langue) and a language (langage). Meaning seeks a language (langue) and a language (langage) to express itselve. For too long the language question has been restricted to a language issue: the expression in French, German or another spoken language. Here we touch upon the subject of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis that language is not a simple, interchangeable with any other language, to make his ideas, but it influences the message by its own character. Again Gadamer:

... In the extreme case of translation, there is no doubt that, whatever the familiarity of the translator with life and feelings of the author, the translation of a text is not the simple resurrection of the original psychological process of writing but a resumption (Nachbildung), guided by the understanding of what it says. No one can doubt that this is an interpretation, not a single co-operation (Mitvollzug). "(VM, p. 407) 3,4

2 WM, p. 289 : Ein wahrhaft historisches Bewusstsein sieht die eigene Gegenwart immer mit, und zwar so, dass es sich selbst wie das geschichtliche Andere in den richtige Verhältnissen sieht…. es ist eine beständige Aufgabe, die voreilige Angleichung der Vergangenheit an die eigenen Sinnerwartungen zu hemmen. Nur dann wird man die Überlieferung so hören, wie sie sich in ihrem eigenen anderen Sinne hörbar zu machen vermag. 3... beim dem extremen Fall der Übersetzung au seiner fremden Sprache… hier kann niemand zweifeln, dass die Übersetzung eines Textes, mag der Übersetzer sich noch so sehr in seinen Autor eingelebt und eingefühlt haben, keine bloße Wiedererweckung des ursprünglichen seelischen Vorgangs des Schreibens ist, sondern eine Nachbildung des Textes,


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Early on it was recognized that the text of Tempels presents the ideas of Bantu in Dutch or French, in a vocabulary and grammar formed by the particularity of these languages of that time, but which are not always adequate to 'translate' the statements of Bantu . Tempels is himself aware of in an article he published in Dutch, translated later on in French.5 Alexis Kagame, Rwandan philosopher, mad it the starting point of his critique of Tempels. He tried to reconstruct Bantu philosophy from the categories of the Rwandan language, Kinyarwandi. (Bantu-Rwandese Philosophy of Being, 1956). For your information: he finds the Aristotelian categories in the Bantu-Rwandese thought. This becomes an essential feature of many 'followers' of Tempels and Kagame: how to find a common language between the experience of their native language and and legacy of the philosophical languages of the colonizing countries: French, English, even German sometimes but rarely Portuguese. But there are other African philosophers who are inspired by Heidegger, as did the Greek philosophers, who tried to get philosophical thought from its own language, German, and has become almost an horror for translators in non-Germanic languages. These (African) philosophers are trying to rebuild a 'philosophy' from the peculiarities of the language. Note about this the initiative of Chike Jeffers who published in 2013 an anthology of philosophical texts written by African philosophers, but in their native language. But fortunately for us Westerners: with English translation 6. But the linguistic aspect is more than language (langue): it is also the language (langage) used to express an idea in various literary genres in the same language. These genres are more than a form to express an idea. The form is already communication. And according to the laws of communication of Paul Watzlawick nonverbal communication can have more influence than verbal communication. A philosophical treatise is

die durch das Verständnis des in ihm Gesagten geführt wird. Hier kann niemand zweifeln, dass es sic hum Auslegung handelt und nicht um bloßen Mitvollzug – WM, S. 363. 4 J’ai reconnu cette expérience personnellement, lorsqu’on m’avait demandé de ‚traduire’ en néerlandais un texte que moi-‐même j’avais écrit en français. Je ai dû le réécrire pour le rendre ‚lisible’ et compréhensible en néerlandais. C’était même un conseil d’un professeur de traduction : un texte traduit doit être un texte où le lecteur n’a plus de conscience qu’il est traduit, mais qu’il pense que ce texte est entièrement conçu dans la langue dans laquelle on le lit. 5 De studie der Bantoe-‐talen in het licht der Bantoe-‐filosofie, in Kongo-‐Overzee, 1946-‐47 (12-‐13) p. 225-‐233, traduit en Présence Africaine (1948) n°5, p. 755-‐760, L’étude des langues bantoues à la lumière de la philosophie africaine; repris en Mélanges de Philosophie Bantu, par A.J. Smet (ed), Wezembeek-‐Oppem, 2000, p. 73-‐78. 6 In Flanders this is very sensitive issue, since a former archbishop, a former professor of philosophy at Leuven, Cardinal D. Mercier advocated in the 19th century that Dutch couldnot be an academic language and that French was as far much higher for culture and science.


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different from a novel or a proverb that has the same idea. So by transposing the stories, riddles and proverbs in a philosophical statement, this can lose the original meaning. Not only in its content but also in the interaction with the speaker and the interlocutors. Here we return to the thought expressed by Gadamer: Language (langage) / language (langue) creates an medium in which the speaker, interlocutors and meaning meet each other. The linguistic nature of the interpretative experience may not, however (exhaustively) exhaust the meaning of a statement. The hermeneutical experience is about the experience of the human existential finitude according to Gadamer. But an experience that has to be remake continually. This constitutes its Wirkungsgeschichte or its actual history. Note about this the attempts of the so called hermeneutical school of Kinshasa where especially prof. Tshiamalenga Ntumba and Nkombe Oleko tried to reopen the question of languages in African philosophy. In particular prof. Nkombe Oleko (1946-2014) who tried to develop an hermeneutic for proverbs, taking a word from Paul Ricoeur seriously: the (pro) -verbe gives something to think, and it is precisely in the middle of the intersubjectivity that the proverb finds its meaning 3. Some consequences for African philosophy To believe Hountondji (1976, p. 45 – English 2th ed. p. 51): "He (Kagame) should have renounced Tempels’ whole project instead of gmatic naiveté and carrying it out slightly differently. " (about the criticism of A. Kagame on Tempels). Between the rejection of the work of Tempels, or an imitation on other peoples in Africa, other routes are possible that take account of hermeneutics and the historical horizon of the work of father Tempels. It's like someone who wants to become a 'philosopher': he or she enters the historical hermeneutical horizon of philosophy by reading the philosophers in their horizon or historical situation, from Greek antiquity until contemporary times, but taking into account the subsequent criticism, so to try to understand the project of philosophy: the understanding of the world and of man in all its complexity. Recent publications of African philosophers are proof of it. First of all there are some authors who reflect on hermeneutics itself in the version of P. Ricoeur, HG Gadamer or others.


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More interesting are the authors who, with some distance from the quarrel between Hountondji and the 'ethnophilosophers', start from the questions that arise from this dispute. There is Messay Kebede (originally from Ethiopia) (2004) who analyzes the issue of sameness and otherness that tracks the various speeches since colonial times, even in the writings of Tempels, Hountondji, Senghor, Mudimbe , Serequeberhan and others ...: are we, Africans and Westerners the same or are we ‘others’? How do we share human nature? how can we use our peculiarities? There are the non-answered questions in the publication edited by Jonathan O. Chimakonam (Nigeria) (2015): can we take up the idea of an ontology, an epistemology, a particular logic? We are aware that Western philosophy is based on texts of past generations. The situation in Africa is quite different: apart from the Timbuktu texts, or the texts of Zara Yakob in Ethopia of the 17th C., we have only oral literature. Victor Ahamefule Anoka (Nigeria) (2012) tries to see if hermeneutics or ordinary language philosophy can help render the richeness of this oral literature. One can easily repeat with P. Ricoeur: "The (pro) -verbe gives something to think about" the whole question is precisely: how to interpret this 'thinking'? Especially if the author of this thinking disappeared in the nebulosity of the past. There is perhaps only the (social) functioning of this oral literature that can give an indication of the meaning of these texts. To my knowledge there is only one author that has really taken over the project of Tempels: prof. Elliott Wreh-Wilson (original from Liberia) in his book Beginning African Philosophy. The case for African Philosophy. Past to present (2012). He resumed, chapter by chapter, the issues raised by Tempels, but in the knowledge of known criticisms. Well yes: we must reflect on what can be philosophy without becoming a simple ethno-philosophy; we must reflect on the difference between an academic philosophical discourse and a popular philosophical one; we must reflect on the own project of Tempels and the problem of concepts to express the ideas he believes to find in his conversations with the Bantu; we must think about the mythological metaphysical, social and moral dimensions of popular narratives; we must reflect on the conceptions of man and his place in society and the moral ideas arising therefrom; and yes, we must reflect on the question of God and religion to take an important role in the lives of many Africans. Wreh-Wilson is listening each time: what does Tempels says? what does the critics say? and finally he cautiously give an provisional conclusion that can encourage the reader to continue his own research and his reflections on the taken positions.


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Renouncing the project of father Tempels, is to deny the questions that he put in his text. But entering the hermeneutical and philosophical horizon he opened in the field of African philosophy opens up unexpected perspectives. We lose the certainty, or should we say, the arrogance of Eurocentric particularism of Western philosophy, but one gains a horizon that discovers a world of thoughts, even philosophies of other cultures. But above all, he is returned to his own philosophical tradition to make the comparison between the answers given by these different thoughts and philosophies on issues that are often universal: what is it to be a human being in this world? Why being in this world? Is a reasoning without reference or mytho-theological authority is it possible? 4. Conclusion

Taking the two key concepts of Gadamer's hermeneutics, the 'Wirkungsgeschichte' or actual history of a work and the fusion of horizons as a basis for our reflections on African philosophy, we believe to have keys for a better understanding of the debates that currently govern the area of "African Philosophy", but that can also be successful in all intercultural encounters in today's world.

The hermeneutics of Gadamer's is only a door for the interpretation and understanding of a thought 'that comes from elsewhere’. With the 'Bantu Philosophy' of father Tempels, we have a exemplary phenomenon that teaches us to quit a reading from a vuepoint of 'us' and 'them', to gain a reading that leads to a fusion of horizons from the author and the reader, through its actual history. And as Gadamer wrote: this hermeneutics make us discover that the truth of the interpretation will always be partial: something unveiling, something veiling, symbol and expression of the existential finitude of every man.

With the texts that constitute the whole of African philosophy, we are in possession of something that can be read and reread. And it facilitates somehow of becoming aware of what African philosophy can/may be.

But a text is only part of the cultural heritage of a people. The expression Man expresses him/herself also in a culture of objects, rituals and stories. In sub-Saharan Africa where we find more culture of orality, there are stories, rituals and objects which form more pronounced expressions than the texts. They are in the intersection of social, aesthetic and religious (eg initiations, divination, masks, dances, language tamtam (!) ...) And in


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complete absence of the original author-creator. Gestures and rites are done, and there are only a few people, recognized as 'wise', who sometimes give us some explanations or interpretations.

One can stay in the exotic and touristic anecdots (V.Mudimbe) or one can enter that 'environment' to start a dialogue and try to take a common meaning with our interlocutors on the issues raised by these gestures and rites in our own existence. But let us not forget the trap of language/langage and the language/langue that leads us to an to easy and fast understanding.


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5. Bibliography : Ahamefule Anoka, Victor, African philosophy. An overview and a critique of the philosophical significance of african oral literature, Frankfurt a/Main, Peter Lang, 2012, Ch. 4: Hermeneutics and African Philosophy, p. 111-‐155 Biveghe Mezui, Marcel, La rencontre des rationalités. Cultures négro-‐africaines et idéal occidental, Paris, L’Harmattan, 2007, 199 pg. Bontinck, Fr., Aux origines de la philosophie bantoue. La correspondance Tempels-‐Hulstaert (1944-‐48), Kinshasa, Faculté de Théologie Catholique, Bibl. CERA, t. 10, 1985, 209 p. Chimakonam, Jonathan O. (ed), Atuolu Omalu. Some unanswered questions in contemporary African philosophy, Lanham, UPA, 2015, 315 pg. Elengabeka, E., L’Herméneutique au carrefour des rationalités et son impact sur le 'savoir' africain, in Philosophies et cultures africaines à l'heure de l'interculturalité. Anthologie,(Sous la directon de M. Kouam et C. Mofor), Paris, L’Harmattan, 2011, tome 2, p. 155-‐170 Elungu, P.E.A., Tradition africaine et rationalité moderne, Paris, L’Harmattan, 1987, 185 pg. Emongo-‐Lomomba, De l’herméneutique zaïroise. Jalons d'une philosophie de l'histoire de la philosophie africaine contemporaine, in Revue Philosophique de Kinshasa, 06(1992) 10, p. 129-‐136 Eyenga, Liongo O., Le statut de l'herméneutique dans l'oeuvre de Mircea Eliade, in Revue Philosophique de Kinshasa, 09(1995) 15-‐16, p. 67-‐84 Foé, Nkolo, Les politiques de la philosophie en Afrique: émancipation, postcolonialismes, herméneutique et gouvernance, in Diogène, 2011, n°235-‐236: Africana. Une philosophie de l'Africanité, p. 174-‐191 Fouda, B.-‐J., La Philosophie négro-‐africaine de l'existence. Herméneutique des traditions orales africaines, Paris, L’harmattan, 2013, 257 pg. Gade, Christian B.N., What is Ubuntu? Different Interpretations among South Africans of African Descent, in South African Journal of Philosophy, 31 (2012) 3, p. 484-‐503 Gadamer, H.G., WahrheitundMethode, Grundzüge einer philosophischen Hermeneutik, Tübingen, 1975 (4. Auflage), 553 pg. Gadamer, H.G., Vérité et Méthode. Les grandes lignes d’une herméneutique philosophique, Paris, 1996 (Edition intégrale), 534 pg. Gadamer, H.G., Boehm G., (Hgb), Seminar : Philosophische Hermeneutik, Frankfurt a/Main, Suhrkamp STW 144, 1976, 338 pg. Grondin, J., L’herméneutique, Paris, PUF – QSJ 3758, 2006, 125 pg. Grondin, J., L’universalité de l’herméneutique, Paris, PUF – Epiméthée, 1993, 249 pg. Hebga, Meinrad, La rationalité d’un discours africain sur les phénomènes paranormaux, Paris, L’Harmattan, 1998 n 362 pg. Hountondji, Paulin J., Sur la “philosophie Africaine”, Paris, Maspéro, 1976, 257 pg. (réédité en 2013, Bamenda, Langaa, 236 pg.; trad. en allemand: Afrikanische Philosophie, Mythos und Realität, Berlin, Dietz, 1993; trad. en anglais: African Philosophy. Myth & Reality, Bloomington, IUP, 1996 (1983), 221 pg.) Hountondji, Paulin J.,(dir.), La rationalité une ou plurielle?, Dakar, CODESRIA, 2007, 467 pg. Hountonjdi, Paulin, Combats pour le Sens. Un itinéraire Africain, Cotonou, Ed. Du Flamboyant, 1997, 300 pg. (réédité en 2013, Bamenda, Langaa resarch, 267 pg.; trad. en anglais: The Struggle for Meaning. Reflections on Philosophy, Culture and Democracy in Africa, Ohio, OUP, 2002, 308 pg.) Iteyo, Crispinous, Belief in the spirits of the dead in Africa: A Philosophical interpretation, in Thought and Practice. A Journal of the Philosophical Associaton Of Kenya, NS 1(2009)1, p. 147-‐159 Janz, Bruce, Thinking Wisdom: The hermeneutical basis of Sage Philosophy, in African Philosophy, XI (1998), p. 57-‐82 Jeffers, Chike, Listening to ourselves. A multilingual Anthology of Africain Philosophy, (Foreword by Ngugi wa Thiong’o), New York, SUNY-‐press, 2013, 194 pg.


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Kacou Oi Kacou, V.D., Penser l'Afrique avec Ricoeur, Paris, L’Harmattan, 2013, 244 pg. Kangudi, Kabwatila, Dialectique entre l'herméneutique des traditions et la critique des idéologies, in Revue Philosophique de Kinshasa, 12(1998) 21-‐22, p. 83-‐98 Kebede, Messay, Africa’s Quest for a Philosophy of Decolonization, Amsterdam/New York, 2009, 256 pg. Kinyongo, Jeki, Essai sur la fondation épistémologique d'une philosophie herméneutique en Afrique: le cas de la discursivité, in Présence Africaine, 109 (1979), p. 11-‐28 Langage et Philosophie. Actes de la 4ème Semaine Philosophique de Kinshasa, 1979, in Recherches Philosophiques Africaines n°6, Kinshasa, FTC, 1981, 416 pg. Lodewyckx, Herman, L’actualité de la philosophie Bantoue de P. Tempels et A. Kagame, à paraître in Acta Comparanda, 2015, 10 p. Mabe, J.E., Mündliche und schriftliche formen philosophischen Denkens in Afrika, Frankfurt a/Main, Peter Lang, 2005, 508 pg. Mawere, Munyaradzi, Reconstructing African Philosophy. African metaphysical epistemology, Saarbrucken, Lambert Ac. Publ., 2010, 114 pg. Mbambi Monga Oliga, L’approche herméneutique de la Philosophie Africaine. Une lecture critique, in Recherches Philosophiques Africaines, n° 03: Mélanges de Philosophie Africaine, 1978, p. 71-‐84 Murungi, John, The question of an African jurisprudence: Some hermeneutic reflections, in Wiredu, K. (ed.), A Companion to African Philosophy, Oxford, 2005, p. 519-‐525 Mve-‐Ondo, Bonaventure, A chacun sa raison. Raison occidentale et raison africaine, Paris, L’Harmattan, 2013, 305 pg. Mveng, Engelbert, Introduction à l'herméneutique négro-‐africaine, in Le critique africain et son peuple comme producteur de civilisation. Colloque de Yaoundé 1973, Paris, Présence Africaine, 1977, p. 121-‐153 Njoh-‐Mouelle, Ebénézer (ed), La philosophie et les interprétations de la mondalisation en Afrique, Paris, L’Harmattan, 2009, 426 pg. Nkombe Oleko, Fr., Métaphore et métonymie dans les symboles parémiologiques. L’intersubjectivité dans les “proverbes Tetela”, in Recherches Philosophiques Africaines, n° 4, Kinshasa, Faculté de Théologie Catholique, 1979, 264 pg. Nzhie-‐Engono, J., Discours surl'afro-‐modernité. Pour uneherméneutique de la penséeafricaine, Paris, l’Harmattan, 2013, 210 pg. Okere, Th., Can there be an African Philosophy? A hermeneutical investigation with special reference to Igbo culture. (Doctorate Dissertation), Université Catholique de Louvain – ISP, 1971, 485 pg. Okoye, C. C., The hermeneutics of culture in Theophilus Okere: a philosophical analysis (thèse), Nnamdi Azikiwe University, 2012, 122 p. Onaotsho, Kawende Jean, Herméneutique, critique et déconstruction. Repères d'une herméneutique de la vigilance, in Revue Philosophique de Kinshasa, 15(2001) 27-‐28, p. 141-‐152 Onaotsho, Kawende Jean, L’art comme lieu herméneutique des idéaux sociaux, in Revue Philosophique de Kinshasa, 23(2008) 40-‐41 -‐ Art et Philosophie, p. 45-‐56 Onaotsho, Kawende Jean, Le langage des masques africains. Lieux et articulations herméneutiques, in Revue Philosophique de Kinshasa, 23(2008) 40-‐41 -‐ Art et Philosophie, p. 155-‐164 Serequeberhan, Ts., The hermeneutics of AfricanPhilosophy. Horizon and Discourse, New York – London, Routledge, 1994, 161 pg. Sogolo, Godwin, Popper's hermeneutics and African Thought, in Quest -‐Philosophical Discussions, vol. II/2 (1988), p. 75-‐86 Taylor, Charles M., Hermeneutik und Ethnozentrismus, in Wertetraditionen und Wertekonflikte. Ethik in Zeiten der GlobalisierungStudien zur Interkulturellen Philosophie bd 21, 2013, p. 301-‐320 Tempels, Placide, Notre Rencontre, Léopoldville, Centre d’études Pastorales, 1962, 207 pg. Tempels, Placide, Philosophie Bantu, augmentée du huitième chapitre inédit. Avant-‐propos et Edition critique de la traduction française par le Prof. Dr. A.J. Smet, c.p., Wezembeek-‐Oppem, 2008, 137 pg. (A consulter à http://www.aequatoria.be/tempels/FTCriticalEditonFR.htm )


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Abstract : Dans son œuvre magistrale, ‘Vérité et Méthode’, H.G. Gadamer nous fait entrer dans un monde où la vérité comme ‘adaequatio rei et intellectus’ perd son sens. Deux concepts clefs de l’herméneutique de Gadamer vont nous aider à l’interprétation des œuvres littéraires et artistiques : la productivité historique (Wirkungsgeschichte) et la fusion des horizons (Horizontverschmeltzung). Il y a toutefois un problème que nous sous-‐estimons trop souvent: que le processus de la compréhension est essentiellement langagier. Nous prenons l’œuvre de P. Tempels sur la Philosophie Bantoue comme exemple des défis que l’interprétation de ce texte pose aux Africains, mais également à nous, les Européens. La vision herméneutique de Gadamer peut nous aider à mieux saisir les enjeux d’un tel débat et pour l’Afrique et pour la philosophie en générale, mais également pour les rencontres interculturelles. In his masterpiece, 'Truth and Method', H.G. Gadamer lead us into a world where truth as 'adaequatio rei et intellectus' lost almost its meaning. Two key concepts of Gadamer's hermeneutics will help us in the interpretation of literary and artistic works: the historical productivity (Wirkungsgeschichte) and fusion of horizons (Horizontverschmeltzung). However, there is a problem that we too often underestimate: the process of understanding is essentially linguistic. We take the work of P. Tempels of Bantu Philosophy as an example of the challenges that the interpretation of the text poses to Africans, but also to us Europeans. The hermeneutical vison of Gadamer can help us better understand the issues of such a debate and for Africa and for philosophy in general, but also for intercultural encounters. In seinem Meisterwerk "Wahrheit und Methode", H.G. Gadamer führt uns in eine Welt, in der die Wahrheit, wie 'adaequatio rei et intellectus "seine Bedeutung verloren. Zwei Schlüsselbegriffe Gadamers Hermeneutik werden uns bei der Interpretation der literarischen und künstlerischen Werken helfen: die historische Produktivität (Wirkungsgeschichte) und Horizontverschmelzung (Horizontverschmeltzung).Allerdings gab es ein Problem, dass wir viel zu oft unterschätzt haben: der Prozess des Verstehens ist im Wesentlichen sprachlich. Wir nehmen uns die Arbeit von P. Tempels der Bantu-‐Philosophie als ein Beispiel für die Herausforderungen, die die Interpretation des Textes stellt für die Afrikaner, aber auch für uns Europäer. Die hermeneutische Vision Gadamers kann uns helfen dieProbleme einer solchen Debatte und für Afrika und für Philosophie im Allgemeinen, sondern auch für interkulturelle Begegnungen besser zu verstehen.

Hermeneutics and African Philosophy

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