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Life
He argued that African philosophy could only become fully itself once it stopped explaining ideas in the borrowed vocabulary of English and started thinking directly in African languages.
He argues that you can be rooted in a particular place and people while remaining a citizen of the whole world, and that these are not in tension.
Connection
Kwasi Wiredu Ghanaian philosophical tradition Kwame Anthony Appiah — Wiredu and Appiah, both shaped by Ghana and by Oxford-trained analytic philosophy, share a central concern with what it means to do philosophy from an African perspective without either romanticizing tradition or simply importing Western categories wholesale.
Ideas
Words
“Philosophy always operates against the background of a given conceptual framework, which itself is not, in the main, the product of philosophical reflection.”
“The idea that African modes of thought are essentially mystical rather than rational is one of the most fundamental confusions in the study of African philosophy.”
“We do not need, have never needed, to agree on everything in order to act together.”
“There is a name for what happens when people across cultures influence each other: it is called life.”
Key Moments
c. 1958
Begins teaching philosophy at the University of Ghana
1996
Publishes Cultural Universals and Particulars
2002-14
Princeton professorship and Cosmopolitanism
Works
Cultural Universals and Particulars: An African Perspective
Cosmopolitanism: Ethics in a World of Strangers