Tradition and Modernity: Philosophical Reflections on the African ExperienceIn this important and pioneering book, Kwame Gyekye examines postcolonial African experience from a viewpoint receptive to aspects of both traditional African cultures and Western political and moral theory. African people, in their attempt to evolve ways of life compatible with an increasingly globalized world cultural, intellectual, and political scene, face a number of unique societal challenges, some stemming, Gyekye argues, from traditional African values and practices, others representing the legacy of European colonialism. Enlisting Western political and philosophic concepts to clear, comparative advantage, Gyekye addresses a wide range of concrete problems afflicting postcolonial African states, such as ethnicity and nation- building, the relationship of tradition to modernity, the relationship of the nation-state to community, the nature of political authority and political legitimation, political corruption, and the threat to traditional moral and social values, practices, and institutions in the wake of rapid social change. With striking flexibility and rare insight, Gyekye assesses the value of both traditional and non-African cultural components for the future of African societies and proposes alternative social and political models capable of forging a modernity appropriate for Africa. The resulting book, Tradition and Modernity: Philosophical Reflections on the African Experience, is a brilliant new contribution to postcolonial theory and will be of deep interest to scholars of political and moral philosophy, cultural studies, and African philosophy and politics, and to anyone else concerned with the efforts of non-Western societies to properly modernize. |
Contents
| 3 | |
In Defense of Moderate Communitarianism | 35 |
CHAPTER 3 Ethnicity Identity and Nationhood | 77 |
Their Status in the Modern Setting | 115 |
CHAPTER 5 The Socialist Interlude | 144 |
CHAPTER 6 Quandaries in the Legitimation of Political Power | 171 |
A Moral Pollution | 192 |
CHAPTER 8 Tradition and Modernity | 217 |
Which Modernity? Whose Tradition? | 273 |
Notes | 299 |
Bibliography | 317 |
Index of Names | 327 |
Index of Subjects | 330 |
Other editions - View all
Tradition and Modernity: Philosophical Reflections on the African Experience Kwame Gyekye Limited preview - 1997 |
Tradition and Modernity: Philosophical Reflections on the African Experience Kwame Gyekye No preview available - 1997 |
Common terms and phrases
Accra African cultures African Philosophy African political African socialism African society Akan Akan language appropriate Ashanti attitudes basic basis century chapter chief citizens colonial communitarian communocultural concept considered constitute context critical cultural past cultural tradition cultural values democracy democratic economic elements enterprise essentially ethnic group ethnocultural ethos existence experience expression fact fundamental G. E. M. Anscombe Ghana goals historical Hountondji human society Ibid ideas identity ideology imply individual individualist inherited institutions intellectual J. B. Danquah Kenneth Kaunda Kwame Gyekye Kwasi Wiredu language legitimacy legitimate means ment metanational military modern moral responsibility moral revolution multinational N₁ N₂ nation-building nation-state national culture nature normative Oxford person personhood philosophical Plato political corruption political power position postcolonial practice principles problems proverb public officials pursuit reason relevance responsibility rule ruler sense theory thought tion traditional African University Press Western
Popular passages
Page 64 - Act in such a way that you always treat humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of any other, never simply as a means, but always at the same time as an end.
Page 245 - His watchword, rather, is, as he says, to " maintain the rights of each"; to render unto Caesar what is Caesar's, and unto God what is God's.
Page 64 - Now I say that man, and in general every rational being, exists as an end in himself, not merely as a means for arbitrary use by this or that will: he must in all his actions, whether they are directed to himself or to other rational beings, always be viewed at the same time as an end.
Page 59 - What is good for me has to be the good for one who inhabits these roles." Open-ended though it be, the story of my life is always embedded in the story of those communities from which I derive my identity — whether family or city, tribe or nation, party or cause.
Page 17 - it is not so with you. We have brought you into existence for your country's sake as well as for your own, to be like leaders and king-bees in a hive; you have been better and more thoroughly educated than those others and hence you are more capable of playing your part both as men of thought and as men of action. You must go down, then, each in his turn, to live with the rest and let your eyes grown accustomed to the darkness.
Page 117 - The structure of an African state implies that kings and chiefs rule by consent. A ruler's subjects are as fully aware of the duties he owes to them as they are of the duties they owe to him, and are able to exert pressure to make him discharge these duties.
Page 36 - Whatever happens to the individual happens to the whole group, and whatever happens to the whole group happens to the individual. The individual can only say: "I am, because we are; and since we are therefore I am".
Page 144 - African Socialism", the word "African" is not introduced to describe a continent to which a foreign ideology is to be transplanted. It is meant to convey the African roots of a system that is itself African in its characteristics. African Socialism is a term describing an African political and economic system that is positively African, not being imported from any country or being a blueprint of any foreign ideology but capable of incorporating useful and compatible techniques from whatever source.
Page 59 - is always embedded in the story of those communities from which I derive my identity. I am born with a past; and to try to cut myself off from that past, in the individualist mode, is to deform my present relationships.