Bio of the Week: Kwasi Wiredu
Kwasi Wiredu
“By decolonization, I mean divesting
African philosophical thinking of all undue influences emanating from our
colonial past”
-Kwasi Wiredu
Kwasi Wiredu is a philosopher; his work is centred on
the relationship between culture and philosophy. In particular, he is concerned
with the philosophical conditions of an intercultural dialogue. He points out that
the value of the African tradition for the dialogue of cultures, demands a
"conceptual decolonisation" and develops new concepts of ethics of
consensus to promote democracy.
Wiredu
was born 03 of October 1931 in Kumasi, Ghana. It was at Adisadel College in
Cape Coast, Ghana that he discovered philosophy through the works of Plato and
Bertrand Russell. After his secondary schooling, Wiredu attended the University
of Ghana, Legoni in the vicinity of Accra where he obtained a BA (1958). After
graduating, he went to University College, Oxford where he obtained his M.Phil
(1960). While at Oxford, Wiredu wrote his thesis on “Knowledge, Truth and
Reason”, and upon graduating he was appointed to a teaching post at the
University College of North Staffordshire (now the University of Keele). After
a year, Wiredu returned to Ghana to teach philosophy at the University of
Ghana, his old university. He remained at the University of Ghana for
twenty-three years, during which time he became first Head of Department and
then Professor. In 1983, Wiredu
became a member of the Committee of Directors of the International
Federation of Philosophical Societies. Additionally, from 1985 and 1986, Wiredu
has been a fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Centre for Scholars and
the National Humanities Centre, North Carolina respectively. Since 1987, he has held a professorship at the University of South Florida in Tampa
in the United States of America (US) and remains there today. He is also Vice-President
of the Inter-African Council for Philosophy.
Numerous
visiting professorships led Wiredu to various universities are around the
world. In Nigera, Wiredu holds a professorship from the University of Ibadan,
Nigeria (1984). In the United States, he also holds several visiting
professorships from the University of California, Los Angeles, California (1979–1980), University of Richmond, Virginia (1985), Carleton College, Minnesota (1986) and Duke University, North Carolina (1994–95, 1999–2001). He has published articles in Logic, Epistemology and
African Philosophy and has written entries in encyclopaedias and anthologies. His book Philosophy and an
African Culture was published by Cambridge University Press in
1980. Person and Community: Ghanaian Philosophical Studies was
jointly edited by him and Kwame Gyekye and published in 1992 by the Council for
Research in Values and Philosophy, New York. His Cultural Universals
and Particulars: An African Perspective, (Bloomington: Indiana
University Press) appeared in 1996. He also edited A Companion to
African Philosophy, published by Blackwell in 2004.
Wiredu's work remains influential as colonial accounts of
African thought has led him to raise some fundamental questions about
philosophy and culture and, in particular, about the philosophical conditions
of inter-cultural dialogue. Investigation encounters intersections with
epistemological and ethical issues.
Selected
Works:
Philosophy
and an African Culture. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press (1980)
Cultural
Universals and Particulars: An African Perspective. Bloomington: Indiana University Press
(1996)
Person
and Community: Ghanaian Philosophical Studies [ed] Wiredu & Kwame Gyekye. New York: Council for Research in Values
and Philosophy (1992)
A
Companion to African Philosophy. Oxford: Blackwell (2003)
An
Oral Philosophy of Personhood: Comments on Philosophy and Orality (2003)
Toward
Decolonizing African Philosophy and Religion. African Studies Quarterly, Volume 1
Issue 4 (1998)
Sources:
Wiredu,
K. Toward Decolonizing African Philosophy
and Religion, African Studies Quarterly, Volume 1, Issue 4 (1998)
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