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2024, Black Perspectives
The synergy of Africana Studies, African-Centered Psychology, and African Philosophy provide the foundation for conceptualizing African Deep Thought as an African-Centered approach to critical thinking. The result is a paradigm shift encouraging deep thinking grounded in an African worldview that is guided by African ethics and cultural values. Ultimately, the critical thinking process begins with African ethics and cultural values as the basis for understanding that which is being investigated.
International Journal of Africana Studies
Putting Some Soul into Critical Thinking: Toward an African-Centered Approach to Critical Thinking in Africana Studies2021 •
This paper engages the idea of critical thinking from an African-centered perspective centralizing the role of African and African Diasporic culture in knowledge construction in Africana Studies. “Putting some soul into critical thinking” refers to putting African and African Diasporic culture into critical thinking. This African cultural enhancement of critical thinking skills offers an alternative to European and Euro-American approaches to critical thinking and offers an alternative approach, cast in this article as African Deep Thought. It ensures that knowledge is culturally grounded, relevant, and positively affects the African and African Diasporic existential trajectory. This is also critical in re-centering Africana scholars as the knowing subject, deriving their inspiration and clarity of vision from African culture in ways that engender intellectual and intercultural pluralism without hierarchy. To that end, this paper explores some of the distinct features of African-centered critical thinking such as good character. Good character is defined here as the qualities and attributes that are part of one’s personality and are consistent with and reaffirmed by the individual and collective soul. Another feature is the interest in improving the individual and collective human respect and dignity of African people and their descendants as well as improve their material existence and quality of life. Lastly the intellectual skills and practices that draw upon African and African Diasporic cultures and philosophies. The paper discusses culture and power, African-centeredness, African Deep Thought, and the relationship between the individual and community in route to an African centered approach to critical thinking.
Humanist Global Charity
Critical Thinking in Africa - 15 reports from Uganda, Nigeria, Ghana, CameroonsBrighter Brains Institute (now called Humanist Global Charity) has provided funding for Critical Thinking workshops in Uganda, Nigeria, The Philippines, Cameroon, and Ghana. The CT program was based on an essay by Nigerian humanist Leo Igwe, called “iDOUBT.” This essay was expanded into a 45-page workbook by BBI director Hank Pellissier with assistance from Abdulrahman Aliyu, BBI’s Nigerian representative. The workshop’s intention is to assist participants in discerning what is true and what is false in their communities. African Traditional Religion, aka “Witchcraft”, remains strong - especially in rural areas - with numerous cultural beliefs that violate human rights (female genital mutilation, albino killing, persecution of widows, etc.) and are destructive to economic success (paying ‘rain makers’, not working on certain days to avoid ocean or farming ‘spirits’). Major religions, of course, also promote harmful deceptions. Our hope is that Critical Thinking workshops will continue to be provided to African communities, to encourage logic and rationality.
A Critical Thinking & Argumentation Course Compendium Professor Ambakisye-Okang Olatunde Dukuzumurenyi, Ph.D. (Editor) BCAT 312 Critical Thinking & Argumentation University of Iringa Iringa, United Republic of Tanzania East Afrika
South African Journal of Philosophy
The Prospects of the Method of Wide Reflective Equilibrium in Contemporary African Epistemology2021 •
This paper makes a case for wide reflective equilibrium in doing African epistemology. It argues that on the issue of formulating a viable theory of knowledge, such an approach is more promising than the extant dominant approaches, namely, the method of ethno-epistemology and the method of particularistic studies. More specifically, wide reflective equilibrium articulates a proper balance between philosophy and culture and endows a theory of knowledge with multiple sources of normativity.
American Philosophical Association Studies
Nurturing the Nexus Between African Philosophy and African Psychology2023 •
Historically, psychology evolved out of philosophy and physiology. In other words, psychology can be said to be the study of philosophy by other means. To the extent that, across the globe today, what is taught in psychology is purely Western or hegemonic psychology, it is safe to say that hegemonic psychology evolved out of Western philosophy. Some examples abound to illustrate Western philosophical underpinnings of hegemonic psychology and its relevance to psychological inquiry.
ewanlen. A Journal of Philosophical Inquiry
7. Gregory E. Ogbenika & Philip Osarobu Isanbor - On the Interdependency of Human Minds in African EpistemologyThe quest for the certainty of knowledge claim cut across cultures and philosophies. African philosophy is no exception. It covers the conceptual development of thought in such areas as logic, epistemology, ethics, metaphysics, aesthetics and axiology. This paper examines relational nature of human minds in African epistemology, meaningfully contending the culture of solipsism. African epistemology recognises the attainment of knowledge beyond the domain of physicality and affirms the recognition of the interconnectedness or interdependency of minds. The paper however does not focus on the perennial issue in philosophy of the existence of other minds because this problem hardly arises within African thought systems due to the interconnectedness of entities, an interconnectedness that dissolves the problem of whether that to which a being is connected exists.
As an African student from Liberia, West Africa, I have stretched the need to appeal for " Critical Thinking " in Our Schools. We were taught in Liberia to recollect resources given to us in instructional forms. It has become a fear that some schools in Africa are not working critical thinking with their students. What does it take to make our students critical thinkers? Our lives are the result of the innumerable choices we make all day long every day, from trivial things like what we eat for breakfast to life-changing decisions like whether we should go back to school. Big or small, every choice we make results in an outcome, and the accumulation of these outcomes shapes our lives. Eating too much of certain foods is eventually going to make a person fat and unhealthy.
People cannot ‘see’ states the same way that they can watch the sunrise in the morning or catch a glimpse of a butterfly floating above a petunia. From this perspective states are not a rigid, tangible form of reality but rather abstract, arbitrary lines drawn by human beings. The concept of a ‘state’, one could argue, is the biggest game of ‘imaginary friend’ (or foe) known to man. Searle (1995:2) gives another perfect example: ‘without the attribution of value, and the existence of financial institutions, a dollar bill or euro note would be nothing more than a piece of paper. As already suggested, sovereignty or the borders dividing states exist only by virtue of human agreement. It is human design and intent that shapes the material object into one with a specific meaning and use within a context.’ The frightening thing, however, is that sometimes these ‘designs’ are presented in such a way that they are adopted by others. In this way, ideas are legitimised through their parallels in history. As stated by Bush (2015: internet),“history can be a tool of influence – a tool of long-term psychological warfare even – used to manipulate the here-and-now, to give added emotional resonance.” A case in point being that one way that colonialism was legitimised in many societies was through the repetition of certain narratives, narratives that interlinked with concepts that originated in the olden days of slavery. As stated by David (2011: internet) “One of the chief justifications for the so-called 'scramble for Africa' was a desire to stamp out slavery once and for all.” The aim of this essay is thus to look at contemporary debates within African philosophy, specifically: Where is Africa? Who is African? How can and does Africa relate to the West, to other philosophical, cultural and religious traditions? Is reason culturally specific? How are reason and language related? What is fundamental reality, in an African context? And finally, how should political, social and ethical life be imagined in Africa? The conclusion will pull all the main points made in the essay together. The sources used to substantiate the arguments made in this paper were books, journals and the internet.
Knowledge goes beyond an independent object imposing itself on the consciousness of a cognitive agent as other variables such as environmental and social factors impact significantly on the knowledge practice of the knowing subject. This paper presents African Epistemology as how the African perceives reality within the context above; this is without prejudice to the universality of knowledge but with keen and particular interest to world-views that shape the African conception of reality
A brief introduction to African Centered Psychology
Treballs d'Arqueologia
Métodos de excavación: del trabajo de campo a la interpretación arqueológica2015 •
2023 Archaeology Conference, 2500 Years of Prosperity, Exchange and Openness, Zayed National Museum, Abu Dhabi, 6th November 2023
Priestman, 2023: The Late Antique/Early Islamic Ceramic Sequence from the Monastic Complex of Siniya, Umm al-QuwainCarta Arqueológica Subaquática de Portugal, Vol. 8
Carta Arqueológica Subaquática de Portugal, 8. Aeronaves2023 •
ournal of African Studies and Sustainable Development
THE ROLE OF RELIGION IN ADDRESSING SECURITY CHALLENGES IN CONTEMPORARY NIGERIAPediatric Practice and Research
Approach to labial fusion in children: 16 years of experience2021 •
The Impact of Eckhart Tolle's "The Power of Now"
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Quaternary Science Reviews
Ancient Maya impacts on the Earth's surface: An Early Anthropocene analog?2015 •