Everything about Paulin J Hountondji totally explained
Paulin Hountondji (b.
1942) is a
Beninese philosopher and
politician.
Hountondji was educated at the
Ecole Normale Supérieure,
Paris, graduating in
1966, and taking his
doctorate in
1970 (his
thesis was on
Edmund Husserl). After two years teaching in France and in the
Congo Republic, he accepted a post at the
National University of Benin in
Cotonou, where he still teaches as Professor of Philosophy.
His academic career was interrupted, however, by a period spent in politics. Having been a prominent critic of the military dictatorship that had ruled his country, Hountondji became involved in Benin's return to democracy (in
1992), and served in the
government as Minister of Education and Minister for Culture and Communications until his resignation and return to the University in
1994.
He is currently director of the African Centre for Advanced Studies in
Porto-Novo.
Philosophical work
Hountondji's philosophical influences include two of his teachers in Paris,
Louis Althusser and
Jacques Derrida. His reputation rests primarily on his critical work concerning the nature of African philosophy. His main target has been the
ethnophilosophy of writers such as
Placide Tempels and
Alexis Kagame. He argues that such an approach confuses the methods of
anthropology with those of philosophy, producing "a hybrid discipline without a recognizable status in the world of theory" ([1997], p.52). Part of the problem stems from that fact that ethnophilosophy is in large part a response to Western views of African thought; this polemical rôle works against its philosophical validity.
His approach has widened somewhat in later work; he still rejects ethnophilosophy as a genuine philosophical discipline, but he's moved towards more of a synthesis of traditional African thought and rigorous philosophical method.
Bibliography
Works by Hountondji
- Sur la "philosophie africaine" (1976: Paris, Maspéro) — featured on the list of Africa's 100 Best Books of the 20th Century
- published in English (transl. H. Evans & J. Rée) as African Philosophy: Myth and Reality (1983: Bloomington, Indiana; Indiana University Press)
- second edition of the English version (with a preface by Hountondji), 1997
- "What can philosophy do?" (1987: Quest 1:2, pp 2–28)
- "Tradition, Hindrance, or Inspiration?"(2000: Quest XIV:1–2)
Secondary literature
F. Abiola Irele "Hountondji" (in Robert L. Arrington [ed.] A Companion to the Philosophers (2001: Oxford, Blackwell) ISBN 0-631-22967-1
Tsenay Serequeberhan The Hermeneutics of African Philosophy (1994: London, Routledge) ISBN 0-415-90802-7Further Information
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