ISBN 9789956726141
Pages 176
Dimensions 203 x 127 mm
Published 2011
Publisher Langaa RPCIG, Cameroon
Format Paperback

The Dialectics of Praxis and Theoria in African Philosophy

An Essay on Cultural Hermeneutics

by Victor B. Bin-Kapela

This book is a clarion call for African renaissance informed by African spirituality. It develops the vision that Africans can be the same in the process of change. Africans have to coincide with their ways of perceiving values, and to retrieve their identity wiped out by regrettable historical events. Even in this involvement of revalorisation of their stifled ways, Africans have to be aware of the fact that history has evolved and new human environments are taking place. Any attempt to recover African personality involves a triple necessity. First, to remember the past, second, to analyse critically what Africans have inherited from their past, and lastly, to project new ways and means for a genuine renaissance, free from alienation and exploitation. Bin-Kapela sees in Cultural hermeneutics an appropriate philosophical method to achieve this end of recognising and projecting African spirituality as a universal value.

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Review

“This book is a valuable contribution to the growing literature on African philosophy. It offers a critical philosophical reflection on African cultural beliefs and practices (‘praxis’), which the author designates as ‘cultural hermeneutics’. It convincingly shows how African culture has been formed, reformed, shaped and reshaped by historical events, which affected the African praxis.”

Piet Konings, Sociologist and Senior Researcher, African Studies Centre Leiden, The Netherlands

About the Author

Victor B. Bin-Kapela

Victor B. Bin-Kapela was born in 1962, in Likasi, Democratic Republic of Congo. He studied Philosophy and Latin, and obtained a Licentiate in Philosophy from the University of Lubumbashi, in 1987. Since then, he has been teaching Philosophy in higher learning Catholic institutions. His research focuses on the philosophical interpretation of cultural phenomena.