The life of
religion or at least the protoreligious is as long as the
traces of humanity itself and through times has been shaped
in multiple religious forms: pharaonic, Christian, Islamic.
This has formed in depth the life of the multiple peoples of
the continent, their cultures and worldviews.
As its life becomes
increasingly more complex and structured in recent it
becomes important for the peoples to engage the arts of
philosophy in order to have a more adequate
self-understanding and more effective and appropriate
organization of economic, social and political life. In
particular it is important to be able to do this in ways
that do not impoverish but enrich the meaning and values of
the lives of the peoples.
Unfortunately much of the
philosophy available from outside of Africa is too
individualistic or idealistic to be able to capture and
promote the full richness of the African sense of meaning
and value. This makes the task of developing a more adequate
philosophy for Africa and Africa’s gift to the world so
exciting and promising. This will be the challenge and
opportunity of the present conference for which the ability
to make room for all of life, including Africa’s religious
traditions – natural religious, Christianity and Islam –
serve as bellwether.
Papers are invited on the
following and other themes:
1/ relations of philosophy
with culture and religion
2/ distinctive
characteristics of religions in Africa: natural, Christian,
Islamic and other
3/ the evolution of African
philosophy from oral tradition, to logical argumentation to
a hermeneutic of culture, etc.
4/ impact of individualism
and liberal theory and Islam on the African worldview and
way of life (NB the title of the World Congress in Athens
2013 is “Philosophy as Theory and Way of Life”)
5/
Contributions of Africa to the global dialogue of
civilizations
L0gistics
The
conference organizer at the University of Western Cape will
provide room and board for those who will present their
papers during the conference.
