A Genetic-Analytic Approach to Philosophizing in Akan
Lecture by Richmond Kwesi
June 19, 2025, 2 pm (CEST)
Cultural Campus, Aula & Live Stream
Part of the Lecture Series Philosophizing in African Languages.
Abstract
Philosophical inquiry, according to Kwasi Wiredu, must be both genetic and analytic. A genetic approach to philosophy is primarily concerned with the origin and existence of fundamental concepts and categories of thought, while an analytic approach deals with the elucidation of concepts usually by breaking them down into their constituent parts and the ways in which the parts are related.
Although African philosophy is replete with philosophical and conceptual analysis, not much attention has been paid to the genetic approach to doing philosophy in an African language. With examples of concepts and practices in Akan, I aim to show how philosophizing in an African language can be both genetic and analytic. Taking the genetic approach as ontologically and epistemically primary, I will argue that a good analysis of concepts and ideas ought to be situated within the linguistic and cognitive structures, and the cultural experiences in which the concepts are embedded.
A genetic-analytic approach to philosophizing, I hope to show, fosters dialogue among cultures, and serves as a useful framework for intercultural philosophy.
Short Bio
Richmond Kwesi is a Senior Lecturer and the current Head of the Department of Philosophy and Classics in the School of Arts at the University of Ghana. He is also an Associate of Clare Hall, University of Cambridge. He obtained his PhD in 2017 from the University of Cape Town, South Africa. His teaching and research stems from a passion to engage in practically-oriented philosophical inquiry into human thought and practices and the ways in which they can promote human well-being and development. With training and expertise in analytic philosophy, he engages in two main strands of research: one, Philosophy of Language and Epistemology, and two, African Philosophical Thought and Practices.
His research in philosophy of language is on metaphor, truth and assertion, where he has published papers to show how metaphors can be truth-evaluable within an inferentialist theory. On African philosophical thought, he researches on African consensual democracy, Kwasi Wiredu’s Empiricalism and Kwame Nkrumah’s Consciencism. → Continue Reading
Event Details
Cultural Campus, Aula & Live Streaming
Please note that the time format is Central European Summer Time (CEST). To access the YouTube Stream for this event, please click on the play button to the right.
This event is part of the Lecture Series Philosophizing in African Languages (Summer 2025).