The Trouble in the Episteme According to Ernest-Marie Mbonda

Abstract

My text will analyze the latest works of the Cameroonian philosopher Ernest-Marie MBONDA on the decolonization of thought and Afrocentric philosophy. From these emerges a problem: is the decolonization of knowledge possible in African philosophy and in the scientific institutions of the subcontinent? On analysis, this is very difficult in his eyes. In view of the European conceptual heritage in Africa and in view of the general level of African consciousness, the “decolonization of thought” would come up against dead ends, traps, and tricks. We are witnessing a dead-end in theories inscribed in a framework imposed by a colonial reason. The latter forces us into a vicious circle that does not allow us to glimpse the possibility of a virtuous circle. It therefore rather ultimately installs a subjective experience that borders on resignation. Since Negro-African or Southern thought takes up the hegemonic language of the dominant Western system of thought, Afrocentric philosophy formulates a grievance in the form of a posture of conciliation: since there can be no single, universal rationality, it is essential that we take into account other rationalities that resemble that of the dominant and allow the pluralization of rationality. From the point of view of the philosophical institution and the social and human sciences, Mbonda's aim is to introduce into the general canon a "disturbance in the episteme" (according to Nadia Yala Kisukidi). It is not a question of rejecting the philosophical institutions of the Center, but of renegotiating the norms of philosophical discourse. The question therefore remains that of the relationship to rationality, universality, and human rights, ideals that have fueled resistance to various oppressions.