Abstract: Following the publication of Jonathan O. Chimakonam’s astounding book, Ezumezu: A System of Logic for African Philosophy and Studies, a monumental piece in the history of African philosophy and logic, which also undergirds the backbone of conversational thinking, various uncharitable misconceptions and misrepresentations have greeted the work. Of the several misrepresentations and misconceptions, the tendency to treat the logic as an African variant of Friedrich Hegel’s dialectics is common. Being a three-valued logic, the tendency to perceive the third value ‘e’ in conversational thinking as a synthesis is replete in several commentaries and criticisms. This has almost become the norm since Hegel’s third value, following thesis and anti-thesis signifies a synthesis. Through the method of philosophical analysis, I argue that: (1) the logic of conversational thinking is not similar to Hegel’s dialectics hence, all commentaries and criticisms in this guise exhibit the Strawman fallacy; (2) for the logic that underlies conversational thinking, synthesis is an anathema; and (3) conversational thinking places emphasis on complementarity over contradiction. Following these points, I submit that when the veil of Hegel is cast aside, a deeper appreciation for an Africa-inspired logic, which has the capacity to mediate thinking for Africa and beyond, may be discerned almost effortlessly.

Abstract: The idea of change seems to be a vital part of human life and culture. With the concept of change, people, communities, and cultural practices have significantly evolved. Change has transformed some communities, traditions, cultural values and practices, communication methods, education, art, and literature. Thus, in this paper, I focus on the idea of change, African cultural practices, and the African sense of community. I aim to show how the concept of change has meddled with African cultural practices and the African sense of community. I intend to achieve this by using the Ifá divination system, the idea of storytelling, and homosexuality or the LGBTIQA+1 people as examples.

Abstract: This essay is an attempt to address some concerns raised in rejoinders to my theory. I summarise the main concerns in the question, “What is this thing called the System of Conversational Thinking?” Three respectable colleagues, Chad Harris, Bruce Janz and Bernard Matolino have articulated some critical questions, which they hope that in addressing them, I would come to improve the System of Conversational Thinking considerably. In this essay, I would reply to their criticisms, but more specifically, I would clarify my position, counter some of their objections and deepen my thought in some places. My method would chiefly consist of exposition, argumentation and conversation.

Abstract: Conversationalism is based on the idea that the truth of our propositions depends on the context in which they are asserted and describes a process of relational yet critical exchange between epistemic agents. However, experiences in applying the conversational method in a micro intercultural setting show that when individuals who are engaged in this creative struggle take collective action together their contexts may in fact converge, thereby frustrating a continuous collision of theses. As a point of departure for this submission, I take an auto-ethnographic approach and share my reflections on a series of conversational encounters between proponents of two traditions who were faced with the challenge of practically collaborating on an educational policy. I then draw on discourse theory to discuss the role of this joint action in producing contextual overlap and theoretical nearness without thwarting the goal of epistemic sophistication, detailing some theoretical as well as practical implications.

Abstract: In this paper, I explore the relationship between individual rights and duties within the Afro-communitarian discourse in African political philosophy. The notion of individual rights is prominent in modern African political philosophy, which is usually used to refer to the tension between community and individual in Afro-communitarianism. In this paper, I specifically focus on this question: Can Afro-communitarianism ground a plausible conception of individual rights that will be of benefit to modern African societies? I will discuss two approaches within the Afro-communitarian discourse that have offered a response to this question. On the one hand, are the duty-based incompatibilists who defend the primacy of duties over individual rights and claim that Afro-communitarianism is incompatible with individual rights. On the other hand, are the rights-based compatibilists who claim that Afro-communitarianism is compatible with individual rights by according to rights and duties equal status in African political philosophy. In this paper, I will take issues with the latter. First, I argue that rights-based compatibilists have not been able to locate individual rights in Afro-communitarianism beyond selective rights granted to a few persons by the community. Second, I argue that some rights-based compatibilists ground their theory of rights on an idea of community that is not communitarian. With these arguments, I establish that rights-based compatibilism does not dislodge the claims of duty-based incompatibilism.

Abstract: In this paper I seek to reinvigorate the theory of conceptual decolonization within African philosophy that has, over the years, succumbed to inertia. I argue that Wiredu’s conceptual decolonization must be grounded on conversational thinking to avoid becoming obsolete. Conceptual decolonization is a double-pronged project with a negative and positive aspect. On the negative, it means using one’s native language as a tool for a critical appraisal of the philosophical concepts one uses in order to dislodge any colonial concepts they may have been uncritically assimilated into our thought systems. On the positive side, it means an engagement with concepts, ideas and theories from other philosophical traditions to ascertain whether they can, if necessary, be supplemented to one’s tradition. The project has to contend with two important challenges. First, when one investigates a foreign concept in one’s native language and finds it to be wanting, how does one know to whom the fault lies? Secondly, what happens when two cultures have two opposing theories about the same concept? Kwasi Wiredu’s solution to the challenges was what he termed ‘independent grounds’. In this paper I seek to offer a solution to the two challenges above. I agree that a part of the solution is ‘independent grounds’ as Kwasi Wiredu maintains. However, ‘independent’ grounds will truly be independent if grounded on the conversational concept of relationship called Arumaristics. I show how adopting the conversational theoretic framework avoids the pitfalls that previously made conceptual decolonization untenable and thus obsolete.

Abstract: I will respond to two queries in this work. The first bothers on the possibility of having a single space in a transdisciplinary discourse. What will scholarship look like when we all come from our various vantage points? The second issue is a corollary of the first; will transcendence of disciplines be another ploy of coloniality to create a special breed that privileges one group over others? Overall, I argue that transdisciplinarity, as it stands, is inadequate since it silently promotes the exclusion of some methods. I will call for conversational thinking, which serves as a model for others to speak meaningfully and be heard.

Abstract: Multicultural societies are faced with the problem of xenophobia – the fear, dislike, and discrimination against strangers. Xenophobia has its root in the ontology of ‘the self’ and ‘the other’, where ‘the self’” is ‘the indigenes’ and ‘the other,’ ‘the strangers’, who must be denied the privileges and rights of the indigenes and the opportunity to contribute towards the development of their societies. In this paper, I employ conversational thinking – a method and philosophy grounded in the sub-Saharan African notion of ‘relationship’ as a viable theoretical option that can help us live beyond the problem of xenophobia. In conversational thinking, there are two ontological and epistemic agents, nwa-nsa and nwa-nju, involved in an arumaristic relationship at an ontological point, nwa-izugbe. I ground my argument in this ‘arumaristic relationship’ which allows for nwa-nsa taken as ‘the self’ (indigenes) and nwa-nju, ‘the other’ (strangers) to come to the realm of nwa-izugbe, and exhibit nmeko (complementarity and solidarity). I contend that the notion ‘nmeko’, emphasized in conversational thinking, is key to putting xenophobia in the past since it stresses ‘arumaristic complementary relationship’ irrespective of socio-cultural and racial differences among people.

Abstract: In “Personhood in a Transhumanist Context: An African Perspective”, Ademola K. Fayemi advocates for a kind of Afro-communitarian theory of transhumanism that is compatible with the Afro-communitarian idea of personhood. In this paper, I examine Fayemi’s account of transhumanism - in particular, his Afrofuturistic account of personhood. Against his Afrofuturistic account of personhood, I argue that enhancing personhood is more plausibly viewed in terms of what I call ‘technologized personhood’ and that even if such a technologized personhood contributes to the common good, this would not support the moral permissibility of transhumanism from an Afro-communitarian standpoint. I will deploy Ifeanyi Menkiti’s account of personhood to contend with the view that such a technologized personhood would have a great implication for the Afro-normative conception of personhood in the transhumanist future.

Abstract: “Is there a place for conversational thinking (CT) in Europe? – Germany/Austria in perspective interrogates the visibility of the African philosophical method, namely Conversational Thinking in the philosophical praxis, teaching, and research in Germany and Austria. It will be considered in the light of epistemic injustice. The paper argues that the emergence of intercultural philosophy in the German/Austrian academic and intellectual cultural space affirms that conversational thinking should have a place. However, uncertainty points to a historically shaped academic, cultural consciousness informing cognitive orientation in engaging with African philosophy. The paper argues that for conversational thinking to have a place, it demands openness beyond the current approaches to intercultural philosophical engagement, which includes German and Austrian philosophers’ readiness to question the logic that shaped their thought and philosophical investigation. By logic, I mean something other than formal elite logic that shapes the context of thought and praxis.

Abstract: In recent times, scholarship has reduced the paradigm for why Africa remains largely underdeveloped to two: the externalist and the internalist views. The former is conceived to comprise scholars who tender that the reason Africa is underdeveloped and remains thus is due to the exploitative presence of Western capitalism and, in recent times, China. Walter Rodney has, however, been placed here as a key figure. The internalist, on the other hand, argues that the reason for Africa's underdevelopment may be traced to the presence of bad leadership and mismanagement on the part of Africans themselves. 'Muyiwa Falaiye and George Ayittey are more pronounced representatives. In this research, I counter the locus that Rodney is an externalist. I disclose how criticizing him from this externalist reading amounts to a Strawman. I extract and build on the eclectic basis of his assessment of African development as a justification for why the externalist-internalist debate leads nowhere.

Abstract: The problem of racial discrimination in South Africa speaks to the question of who is to be included and excluded from South African society. South African society before the advent of democracy structurally and politically was built on exclusionary policies that are disadvantageous to those classified as blacks, colored (mixed raced individuals), and Indians (South Africans of Indian descent), respectively. To unpack the nature of this racial discrimination, I will start by showing how the historical workings of Apartheid policies contribute to the continued problem of racial discrimination in South Africa. I argue that the problem of racial discrimination in present-day South Africa can best be analyzed from new perspectives motivated by the legacies of Apartheid. One such perspective is the value of what I call racial complementarity. I tap into conversational thinking to show how we can rethink the problem of racial discrimination using a different framework other than ubuntu that has failed to adequately address racial discrimination despite its humanistic values. To go beyond ubuntu, one of the ways of addressing racial discrimination would be to cultivate the orientation of racial complementarity. I employed conversational thinking as my preferred methodology for managing the relationship of seemingly opposed variables like the racial lines in South Africa, making it possible for seemingly opposed variables to interact harmoniously and complement one another in ways that dispel unequal and discriminatory treatment of individuals within any society.

Abstract: To eliminate racist prejudices, it is necessary to identify the root cause(s) of racism. American slavery preceded racism, and it was closely associated with genocide. Accordingly, we seek the unique cause of the unique event of genocide + slavery. This was initially justified by religious prejudice, rather than colour prejudice. This religious justification was weakened when many Blacks converted to Christianity, after the trans-Atlantic slave trade. The curse of Kam, using quick visual cues to characterize Blacks as inferior Christians, was inadequate. Hence, the church fell back on an ancient trick of using false history as secular justification for Christian superiority. This trick had resulted in a false history of science during the Crusades when scientific knowledge in translated Arabic texts was indiscriminately attributed to the early Greeks, without evidence. This false history enabled belief in religious superiority to mutate into a secular belief in White superiority. After colonialism, and the Aryan race conjecture, the belief in White superiority further mutated into a belief in Western civilizational superiority, openly propagated today by colonial education. Hence, to eliminate racist prejudice, it is necessary to engage simultaneously with the allied prejudices about Christian/White/Western superiority, based on the same false history of science.

Abstract: Conversational theory of development (CTD) is presented in this work as a new and alternative theory of development and as a mechanism for moderating and reconciling the differences and weaknesses in the modernization theory of development and in the main concern of post-development theory. By its basic canons and principles, conversational thinking offers a more robust global developmental framework. The rift between development and post-development theorists as to the main goal and direction of the world development agenda seems to heighten over the years. The heart of this rift is the question of the place of the third world countries in the much-acclaimed development drive by the United Nations and other International Organizations. I expose the strength and weaknesses of selected development and post-development theories and contend that poor implementation strategies, as well as imperial and exploitative interests, are the bane of these development theories. I demonstrate how conversational thinking overcomes these limitations and presents a more viable development alternative through a rigorous application of its canons of transformative indigenization, constructive modernization and moderate decolonization, as well as the ‘M’ and ‘T’ principles.

Abstract: In his “On the System of Conversational Thinking: An Overview”, and in the talk he presented as part of the development of this paper (similarly titled), Jonathan Chimakonam attempts the first systematic fusion of the various components of Conversationalism. I refer to the ideas in the paper and the talk as ‘SCT’ (short for System of Conversational Thinking) in the comments below. In my response, I make an effort to largely ignore the comparative aspects of the work. In other words, I am not too concerned with the case Chimakonam makes to distinguish Conversationalism as a Philosophy separate from other styles and approaches such as analytic philosophy and hermeneutics. Instead, I make an effort to focus on Conversationalism in its own right and not in contrast to other systems. In doing so, my conversational stance is one of a critical proponent in the sense that I am broadly in favour of much of Conversationalism, but insist on rigorous scrutiny of its insights in the interests of making it stronger. My comments are thus focussed on potential problems with the internal coherence of the ideas contained in Chimakonam’s work, and my hope is to excavate them as areas for further discussion. To this end, I call attention to the following areas of conceptual dissonance in the explication of Conversationalism in SCT.

Abstract: Previously we saw that racist prejudice is supported by false history. The false history of the Greek origins of mathematics is reinforced by a bad philosophy of mathematics. There is no evidence for the existence of Euclid. The “Euclid” book does not contain a single axiomatic proof, as was exposed over a century ago. Such was never the intention of the actual author. The book was brazenly reinterpreted, since axiomatic proof was a church political requirement, and used in church rational theology adopted during the Crusades, as a counter to Islamic rational theology. Deductive proofs are MORE fallible than inductive or empirical proofs. Even a validly proved mathematical theorem, such as the “Pythagorean” theorem (based on Hilbert’s axioms), is invalid knowledge in the real world. There is no concept of approximate truth in formal mathematics. Nevertheless, the myth of “superior” axiomatic proofs in the “Euclid” book continues to be reiterated by Western historians, and colonial education teaches axiomatic mathematics. Actually, superior practical value comes from the two “Pythagorean” calculations well known to Indian/Egyptian tradition, but unknown to Greeks. The advantage of related decolonized courses in mathematics has been pedagogically demonstrated. But understanding and political will are needed to change colonial/church education.

Abstract: Jonathan Chimakonam’s advocacy of conversational thinking has taken African philosophy by storm. It is not an exaggeration to say that no one working in African philosophy, today, can say they are unaware of the so-called Conversational Society of Philosophy (CSP). Equally, I doubt if anyone working in the field could ever say they are not aware of the name Johnathan Chimakonam. His courageous effort to advance a particular form of thinking in the African philosophical tradition is a welcome innovation. While I admire his efforts, I remain unconvinced by some of his claims. Two important claims will be the target of my discussion. The first is his insistence on using very strange language in the pursuit of a conversation. The second is his insistence that his methodology is different from other forms of philosophizing.

Abstract: When civilizations clash or encounter one another, it is a general expectation that one of them will necessarily influence or even dominate the other. This has been the principal character of the advent of Euro-Western civilizations across regions of the world such as Africa, Asia and Latin America. Whereas previous studies have been able to detail how this influence has affected the regions economically, socially, environmentally and politically, this study takes the discourse further to understand how the contact of civilizations can be useful for comprehending contemporary relations in the international community. This study uses the ideas of Samuel P. Huntington as a theoretical framework for showing how civilizations have shaped and influenced global politics in contemporary times. When the proposal of Huntington is assessed from the perspective of how Western civilization has influenced Africa and Latin America especially, three crucial theses are noticeable. First, is the point that Western civilization seeks to dominate or exterminate and then replace non-Western civilizations in the latter’s domain. Second, non-Western cultures are usually drained of their economic resources and minerals in the name of civilization and colonization. Third, the influence of the West in contemporary international relations is waning, and this is one of the reasons why the place of countries like China in contemporary global politics is colossal and really influential in places where Western civilizations used to have unparalleled influence. Following these three theses, this research claims that when one considers the interplay among the civilizations of the world, Huntington’s analysis is penetrative and helpful in making sense of how they reflect in contemporary world politics.

Abstract: Zhongdaology is the core of Chinese traditional Confucian philosophy. The zhongdaological way of thinking represents the Chinese philosophical thinking mode, with Confucianism as the main body, and has deeply influenced many aspects of Chinese culture. It is different from the traditional ontological thinking in the West. However, for a long time, due to the influence of the dominant position of Western ontological thinking in the field of philosophical research, the characteristics of zhongdaological thinking have not been fully elaborated and promoted. This essay briefly exposes the historical origin of the doctrine of zhongdaology and its significance in Confucianism. Like the situation of traditional Chinese philosophy, African philosophy also has long been overshadowed and ignored by western philosophy to some extent. To this end, it can be safely stated that the dominance of western tradition is why the interaction between Chinese philosophy and African philosophy and other underrepresented philosophical traditions in the south have not taken firm roots. This essay makes some preliminary comparisons between Chinese Confucian zhongdaology with some African philosophical ideas such as Ezumezu and Ubuntu, to show, first, the significance of broader dialogue and exchange among different philosophical traditions in the south, second how zhongdaology itself could serve as a veritable framework for doing philosophy across borders.

Abstract: Conversational thinking has emerged in recent years out of the scholarly philosophical work centered in Calabar Nigeria and spread throughout Africa and elsewhere. I have previously had the pleasure of discussing some of the finer points of conversationalism with Jonathan O. Chimakonam in the journal Confluence and the journal’s relaunch as the Journal of World Philosophies. (CHIMAKONAM 2015; JANZ 2016). Our discussion there centered on questions I raised earlier about the nature and limits of dialogue (JANZ 2015), as well as my work on philosophy and place in an African context (JANZ 2009). Our conversation, in other words, has a history, and I expect it will also have a future. It is a conversation that comes from different places. I am not an African, and I lay no claim to be able to represent African life. Therefore, the approach to philosophy I take is one of examining the conditions for the possibility of philosophy, and the barriers to being able to enact those conditions. This is why I write about place so much. The conditions for thinking in a place and about a place differ in different places, but also have some commonalities. And the barriers to thinking in and about place can be fairly clearly outlined. This is of relevance, I argue, in thinking Africa, not as a set of identities or a history but as a space of thought.

Abstract: The marginalization of Ghanaian indigenous languages from the media space ceased in the 1990s when the airwaves were liberalized. This was not only a ground-breaking experience for diversification but also a way of getting the majority of the population informed, especially through radio, which is a comparatively accessible medium. However, indigenous language use for radio news broadcasts has come under intense criticism for the extensive use of embellishments like proverbs, which are believed to digress from foreign and acceptable news standards. Using content analysis of Ghanaian media policy documents, sampled news recordings from selected private FM radio stations, and semi-structured interviews with selected news professionals, this paper argues that Ghanaian indigenous language communication forms include embellishments and their accurate use presupposes an immense understanding of the language. Hence, indigenous languages cannot be adapted and appreciated wholesomely in the media space if aspects of it are downplayed.