Philosophizing in Akan: The Genetic-Analytic Method and Bottom-Up Approaches to Conceptual Translation
Research Talk with Richmond Kwesi
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The GloPhi Center recently hosted a research talk featuring Richmond Kwesi (University of Ghana) in dialogue with an international panel of philosophers. The discussion revisited Kwesi’s concept of a “genetic-analytic” method of doing philosophy in African languages, especially Akan, and examined its relationship to decolonial approaches.
Many references were drawn to Kwesi’s lecture “A Genetic-Analytic Approach to Philosophizing in Akan,” with Kwesi and the participants engaging in a rich debate on the philosophy of language, intercultural perspectives on logic, and the practical challenges of academic philosophy in indigenous languages.
The Genetic-Analytic Method and Decolonial Approaches
At the outset, Richmond Kwesi reflected on how his proposed genetic-analytic method might relate to a decolonial approach. Anke Graness suggested not to cast them as alternatives, but to see how a genetic-analytic approach can be subsumed under a decolonial project. Kwesi acknowledged this idea as very interesting, but maintained that the genetic-analytic approach remains conceptually distinct from decolonialism in important ways. He argued that even without a colonial history, African philosophers would still ask “how do we philosophize in our own language?” – a question which is posed primarily from a linguistic perspective addressed. by the genetic-analytic method. Decolonial philosophy, by contrast, explicitly assumes a historical colonial context; it is a political, intellectual liberation project responding to that specific legacy. Kwesi suggested that if one imagines a scenario without colonization, the impetus to philosophize in one’s mother tongue would persist, whereas the term “decolonization” would lose its footing. Therefore, in his view, the genetic-analytic approach could be seen as more fundamental, focusing on grounding philosophy in indigenous languages and conceptual schemes, whether or not a colonial rupture has occurred. At the same time, he did not deny the historical momentum of colonization, acknowledging ongoing colonial realities, but he cautioned against framing African philosophy solely as an endless loop of reactive decolonization.
Drawing from her Yoruba background, Abosede Ipadeola argued that African languages have always evolved to meet new realities and should not be seen as inherently lacking. “Our ancestors did not speak English, yet they could articulate their experiences using their languages,” she observed. The very feeling that African languages are “not sufficient” for modern life might be an artifact of colonial mindsets – a reason, she suggested, to reinvest in decolonization efforts, not abandon them. In her view, decolonizing the mind (invoking Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o’s famous endeavor) is far from finished, given that many educated Africans today doubt the expressive adequacy of their mother tongues. Ipadeola’s remarks thus framed the genetic-analytic method itself as potentially one tool within a broader decolonial project, rather than a replacement for it.
Kwesi responded by agreeing that decolonization remains important, but he reiterated that his approach addresses a slightly different question. He welcomed seeing genetic analysis as “one way of doing decolonization,” as Ipadeola suggested, yet he also defended its independence. Kwesi’s focus was methodological and systematic (how to build concepts from within African languages), whereas other participants stressed the political-historical task of unshackling thought from colonial languages.
Language in Philosophical Education
A recurring theme was the impact of language on philosophical thought and education. Rianna Oelofsen shared a personal anecdote highlighting how the language of instruction shapes cognitive habits. Educated in Afrikaans through primary school and then in English, she finds that “whenever I do mathematics, I do it in Afrikaans … but if I do biology, I do it in English,” since she first learned math concepts in one language and science in the other. This code-switching in thought led Oelofsen to concur with Kwesi’s point that the language in which one is trained profoundly forms the way we think. She thus questioned Kwesi’s earlier resignation that it was not practical to philosophize academically in local languages. Instead, Oelofsen advocated active measures to keep African languages alive in education. For example, in her own teaching she makes a point to introduce philosophical concepts via students’ mother languages before turning to the English terminology. In a lesson on justice, she first asks students to define “justice” in their native language and give examples, only afterwards discussing the English definition and scholarly texts. Such pedagogical practices, she argued, “force people to think through these ideas” in indigenous terms and reveal different conceptual nuances. Oelofsen’s broader point was that rather than accepting the dominance of English as inevitable, African academics can push for bilingual or multilingual strategies that nurture philosophical reasoning in local languages.
Kwesi agreed that language policy needed reform and acknowledged a “definite connection between the language you are trained in and the kinds of conceptual formations you engage in.” He drew a distinction, however, between informal philosophizing and academic philosophy. Ghanaians certainly “philosophize in local languages” in everyday settings – for instance, elders discussing proverbs and life lessons in Akan. In these contexts, rich philosophical ideas are expressed without English. The difficulty, Kwesi clarified, lies in formal academic writing and dissemination: publishing in Akan would severely limit one’s audience and impact. As he put it, “if I were to write and think in Akan, most of you wouldn’t have heard of me.” English (or other colonial languages like French or German) still serves as the lingua franca of academia and of Ghana’s own higher education system. Since 1948, only one PhD thesis at University of Ghana has been written in Akan (and that in linguistics); all others are in English. This underscores institutional and practical barriers to scholarly work in African languages.
Kwesi described the language policy in Ghana’s schools that entrenches these barriers. From the first day of nursery school, English is the medium of instruction, while local languages are relegated to mere subjects a few hours a week. “You become more versatile in English than in your local language,” Kwesi noted, because one’s entire formal education and literacy training occur in English. Indeed, he recounted that even many philosophy students struggle to discuss abstract topics in their mother tongue; some cannot easily translate basic terms of emotion or logic into Akan, having never used their native language in a scholastic context. The colonial-era attitude that indigenous languages are “vernacular” to be left at the school gate still lingers. Kwesi remembered punitive measures for speaking Akan during school hours and the pride parents take in their children’s English fluency. The result, he lamented, is a generation of young Ghanaians for whom expressing complex or even intimate ideas in their mother tongue is unfamiliar. For example, some students consider it more romantic to say “I love you” in English than in Akan.
Despite these challenges, the panel found hope in small reforms and individual initiatives. Oelofsen’s classroom practice was one example; another came from Kwesi’s observation of South Africa’s multilingual education efforts, where children learn in their community’s language in early years before transitioning to English. Ghana has a similar policy on paper – primary pupils learn in whichever of the main Ghanaian languages is dominant locally – but this persists only up to junior high, and even then English dominates urban schools. Participants agreed that systemic change (e.g. bilingual curricula, requirements to include local-language abstracts in theses, etc.) would be needed to truly alter the linguistic landscape of philosophy. As Kwesi remarked, “nationally, there have to be changes in policy” to promote African languages in academia. In the meantime, he endorsed creative compromises: for instance, Dutch universities often require a Dutch summary in otherwise English dissertations; Ghanaian universities might similarly mandate an abstract or introduction in Akan or Ewe to valorize local tongues. Even if writing a full philosophy book in Akan is currently impractical, such steps could gradually normalize scholarly use of indigenous languages.
Anke Graness pointed out that Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o’s call to “decolonize the mind” by writing in African languages has thus far seen limited realization – perhaps because, as Kwesi had argued, many intellectuals continue to see more drawbacks than benefits in switching to local languages. Graness’s reflection challenged everyone to consider whether promoting African-language philosophy is merely symbolic, or whether it addresses a genuine desire on the ground.
In response, Kwesi strongly affirmed the value of the documentation of marginalized sources in database initiatives and similar endeavors. He sees it as “incumbent upon us” – the current generation of scholars – to try to philosophize in our own languages and to record indigenous philosophical thought. The fact that something has not been done much before (due to logistics, funding, heavy teaching loads, etc.) is not proof that it “doesn’t make sense” to do it now. On the contrary, Kwesi suggested, it is all the more reason to start. He agreed there is no active “sage philosophy” project in Ghana at present (no concerted program to collect village wisdom or oral philosophies). However, he noted that academic philosophers like himself still rely on traditional sources whenever they need to understand concepts like personhood, virtue, or destiny in an African context. If anything, this reliance shows the untapped richness of those oral traditions and the need to elevate them to written, teachable form. Far from an imposed exercise, Kwesi argued, documenting African-language philosophy is “not only good, but necessary” for the growth of knowledge.
Akan Grammar, Worldview, and Conceptual Frameworks
A central focus of the talk was how the Akan language’s structure influences epistemology and ontology, as highlighted by Kwesi’s research. Monika Rohmer opened this line of inquiry by asking Kwesi to translate the term “genetic-analytic method” into Akan, or more precisely, to express the process of philosophizing he aims at in Akan and then re-translate it into English to see what it would yield. This playful challenge underscored the linguistic gap at issue: Kwesi conceded it would be “difficult to find the words ‘genetic’ and ‘analytic’ in Akan” as singular terms. Akan, like many African languages, “is not rich in a lot of academic concepts” that map neatly onto English terminology. Instead, one would likely need to construct an entire phrase or sentence to capture the idea. He gave a general observation that often a single English word requires a longer descriptive phrase in Akan, since scholarly or abstract vocabulary in Akan is still nascent.
Yoko Arisaka later broadened the question: How does one do philosophical work in English about categories from Akan (or other non-Indo-European languages)? Arisaka noted from her perspective in Japanese philosophy that many conceptual distinctions in one language do not align with those of English. Japanese, for instance, has grammatical categories “in between” the usual Western ones: a word can be neither exactly verb nor adjective, or ethical terms might blur with aesthetic ones. Even the line between “fact” and “non-fact” can be linguistically blurred in Japanese, affecting what counts as a lie or truth. She asked Kwesi whether, in presenting Akan concepts in English, he explains such fundamental grammatical differences explicitly or simply gives examples to illustrate them. Arisaka was especially intrigued by Kwesi’s earlier example of the Akan concept of “soul” and by an experimental project on forgiveness – cases where translation is non-trivial. Additionally, she inquired whether Akan has certain grammatical features like tense (future, subjunctive) or honorific forms that English lacks, as these could carry ontological significance (for example, languages without a future tense might conceive of time differently).
Kwesi’s answers revealed several profound differences in the Akan conceptual framework. One striking point was the absence or conflation of certain categories that English treats as separate. For example, Kwesi explained that Akan has no direct equivalent for the concept of “mind” as distinct from the body or brain. In Akan thought, there is no clear category of an immaterial mind. What English calls “mind” is often just referred to with the same word as “brain,” but this is a practical translation, not a literal identification. The Akan view is not that mind is the brain (as a strict materialist might say); rather, it is that what we call “mind” is not even a category at all in Akan ontology. Kwesi cited Ghana’s first president and philosopher Kwame Nkrumah, who wrote that what we call mind might be understood as a “function of the brain.” When the brain operates at a certain critical level of self-organization, that functioning is what we term mind. But again, this is not positing two substances, it’s describing mind as an emergent property without elevating it to an independent ontological status. The implication for translation is that if one reads Akan philosophical texts (or oral teachings) and keeps looking for where “mind” is discussed, one might miss the point because the discourse operates with different fundamental categories.
By contrast, Akan does have a concept roughly corresponding to “soul,” and this concept carries significant weight in Akan metaphysics. In a discussion with Leon Krings, it emerged that the Akan term for soul (okra in Akan) refers to an animating force linked to a person’s character and destiny. Kwesi described the soul in Akan as a kind of life-force or personality principle, responsible for one’s character, which persists after physical death. However, even the soul is not conceived in a purely transcendent, immaterial way. It exists in what Kwesi called a “quasi-physical” realm rather than a completely separate spiritual world. The soul of a deceased person remains connected to the natural world and, according to traditional belief, can even be invoked by ritual specialists (such as priests) to communicate with the living. As Kwesi put it, the soul in Akan ontology has “some connection to the physical” and is not an utterly abstract entity “existing independently” of a body. Krings was curious if Akan culture assumes any sensible access to souls, to which Kwesi answered that through certain ceremonies the soul’s presence can be mediated (for instance, an oracle or medium might allow a departed soul to speak). The conversation affirmed that Akan metaphysics is markedly different from Western dualism: it neither splits reality into wholly separate material vs. spiritual realms (everything is on one continuum of being), nor does it deny non-empirical entities altogether. Instead, it postulates a gradation from physical to quasi-physical existences.
These ontological insights were tied to Akan grammar and vocabulary. Kwesi illustrated how the Akan language “empiricizes” abstract qualities through its grammatical constructions. He noted that concepts like beauty, justice, goodness are not expressed in Akan as abstract nouns (as they are in English), but rather as expressions akin to “being beautiful” or “being just.” Leon Krings honed in on this point, asking how exactly Akan linguistically handles what English treats as adjectives vs. nouns. For instance, English can say “beauty” (noun) versus “being beautiful” (gerundial phrase); does Akan use a verb form like “to beautiful” or some other device? Kwesi explained that in Akan one would typically use a construction with the verb “yɛ” (to be) and an adjective. To say that something is beautiful, one says “ɛ-yɛ fɛ” (literally “it is beautiful”). But to express the idea of “beauty” in the abstract, Akan would essentially use the same root word fɛ (beautiful) in a nominalized or sentential form, rather than having a separate noun like “beauty”. Thus fɛ (beautiful) can have different meanings, with context determining if one means the property or the state of being. The key, Kwesi emphasized, is that Akan does not typically create a noun that reifies the abstraction apart from its instances. Even “justice” would be rendered as “being just” in Akan. English draws a sharp grammatical line between Justice (an abstract entity or ideal) and being just (a quality of an action or person), but Akan blurs that line by using one phrase for both. In philosophical terms, this linguistic feature reflects and reinforces an ontology that resists Platonism, since there is no strong grammatical encouragement to think of Justice or Beauty as separable Forms existing in a transcendent realm. Instead, Akan speakers naturally conceive these as qualities grounded in the empirical world (as qualities of persons, acts, or experiences). Kwesi interprets this as the Akan language “not giving you the luxury to go into the Platonic realm” of abstract objects. Yet Akan people can still engage in abstract thinking, he noted, and can conceive of ideals, they simply do so in a way that keeps those ideals tied to concrete reality through language.
To handle technical or scientific concepts that have no traditional analogue in Akan, Kwesi mentioned Kwasi Wiredu’s recommendation to use transliteration instead of forced translation. Wiredu, a pioneering Ghanaian philosopher, advised that for highly specific terms (especially in science or formal logic), one can simply borrow the term into Akan phonetics. For example, the English word “school” is often rendered as suku in Akan, inserting a vowel to accommodate Akan’s phonology. “Hospital” becomes asópitì, and so on. In essence, Akan can assimilate foreign words when needed (much as Japanese or other languages do) – but for “terms of value” (moral, aesthetic, etc.), one must look for existing expressions in Akan culture. Those are the terms that carry deep conceptual weight and cannot just be imported without losing indigenous meaning. This pragmatic approach of transliterating as much as necessary and translating as much as possible is part of the toolkit for doing rigorous philosophy across languages.
Logical Reasoning: Universal or Culture-Specific?
The conversation then turned to the nature of logic and reasoning across cultures. Abbed Kanoor sought clarification on Kwesi’s stance regarding universality of reasoning patterns. Kanoor recalled Kwesi’s caution against “looking for concepts” like exact equivalents of Plato or Kant in African languages, which Kwesi had criticized as a misguided approach. Yet, Kwesi also seemed to suggest that certain forms of reasoning (e.g. syllogistic logic) are present in all cultures even if the terminology is absent. Kanoor asked: how can we know in advance which aspects of philosophical reasoning are universal? He gave the example that Kwesi assumed modus ponens and syllogism to be implicitlypracticed by the Akan, even without explicit concepts for them. What other concepts or patterns can we safely assumeto exist in any human community, and which must be investigated empirically?
Kwesi responded by drawing a nuanced distinction between basic logical inference and substantive philosophical concepts. He argued that we can posit a few fundamental methods of reasoning shared by virtue of common humanity. For example, it is reasonable to assume that any cultural group is capable of inference, such as understanding that from “If A then B” and “A” one may conclude “B” (modus ponens). Indeed, Kwesi noted, the Akan do use modus ponens-type reasoning in practice, even though there is no formal term for it in the Twi language. “They exemplify those canons of reasoning without having words to express them,” he explained. The error of some colonial-era anthropologists, Kwesi pointed out, was to assume that the absence of a word like “logic” or “cause” meant the absence of the concept or reasoning process itself. On the contrary, people can have conceptions without explicit concept-words. He invoked the distinction (familiar from analytic philosophy and conceptual engineering) between a concept and a conception. A society might not isolate a concept with a name, yet its members have a clear conception or practice related to it. For instance, there might be no word for “democracy,” but the community might still have inclusive decision-making practices (a conception of governance that is democratic in spirit). Thus, lack of a term is not lack of an idea. However, as Kwesi conceded, the reverse is also possible: having a word doesn’t guarantee the practice (you could use “democracy” rhetorically without actual democratic behavior).
That said, beyond those very basic inferential structures (like modus ponens, law of non-contradiction, etc.), Kwesi warned that we should not assume richer philosophical doctrines or values to be universal. Complex social, ethical, or metaphysical concepts – what is a person? what is virtue? – absolutely require empirical and contextual investigation. Here he aligned with Kanoor: one must do the fieldwork or textual study to find out if, say, a particular ethical concept exists in Akan thought. It would be unwarranted to presume the presence (or absence) of ideas like “individual rights” or “karma” without evidence. Kwesi essentially delineated a minimal universalism: inference, rationality, and logical consistency are human universals, but the content of philosophic worldviews varies greatly.
This position prompted a vigorous critique from Rolf Elberfeld, reflecting a moment of productive tension in the discussion. Elberfeld noted that Kwesi’s argument – positing a universal level of thought (logic) distinct from language – sounded “purely Aristotelian” and reminiscent of classical European philosophy. Aristotle distinguished between thought and language, assuming a universal logical structure to thought, and Elberfeld heard echoes of that in Kwesi’s approach. He cautioned that this can slide into a Eurocentric framework: Europeans long assumed their logic was the universal yardstick, and other languages were only “primitive” reflections of those truths. Elberfeld shared his own experience studying Sanskrit, Chinese, and Japanese philosophies, where he found that these traditions “already 2000 years ago” developed alternatives that “challenge the logical paradigm itself”, for example through different conceptions of negation. Indian Buddhist logic, he noted, treats negation and contradiction in more nuanced ways than classical Aristotelian logic, proving that what counts as a valid logical system is not singular. Likewise, Chinese logical and dialectical concepts do not always map onto Western ones. Thus, Elberfeld asked: “Do you think logic is universal? Or are there fundamentally different logics in different traditions?” Is there only one paradigm of logic (presumably the one codified by modern analytic philosophy), to which other cultures either measure up or will develop towards in the future? If so, Elberfeld suggested, that would indeed be a Western way of thinking. He challenged Kwesi to clarify whether he might inadvertently be adopting that stance.
Kwesi’s reply was nuanced and conciliatory. He reaffirmed that he does not believe in a single, absolute paradigm of logic that is beyond debate. His claim about universal reasoning was meant in a minimal sense (the basic capacity for logical thought), not to assert that, for example, classical bivalent logic is the only true logic. He acknowledged Elberfeld’s point that there are multiple “options of logic” and that intercultural dialogue has shown alternatives to the Western canon. However, Kwesi maintained that positing some common denominator of rationality is not a colonial imposition but a way to “bind us all together” so that genuine dialogue is possible. In his words, even as we explore Chinese or African or European logic systems, “there will still be something that binds us all together … call those the canons of reasoning, they are present wherever you go”. The task then is to investigate each culture’s expressions of those canons, not to assume one size fits all.
Integrating African Philosophies into Academia
The latter part of the discussion highlighted practical steps for institutionalizing African-language philosophy and integrating African thought into mainstream curricula. Leon Krings raised the forward-looking question: “What would be the next step to make philosophizing in native languages possible on an academic level?” He suggested that a community of practice must be built – for example, by establishing academic journals or platforms in languages like Akan where multiple authors write and critique each other in that language.
Earlier, Kwesi had shared a concrete example of curricular integration of African philosophy. When he took over teaching an Analytic Philosophy course at the University of Ghana, he initially used the standard syllabus – Frege, Russell, Wittgenstein, logical positivists, etc. However, students struggled with texts such as Russell’s On Denoting. Kwesi then had an idea: Why not teach the same methodological skills of analysis and argumentation using African philosophical texts? After all, his own mentor, Wiredu, had engaged with analytic themes in an African context. So Kwesi completely changed the course to feature Kwasi Wiredu’s writings as core readings. For example, instead of only teaching the correspondence and coherence theories of truth via Euro-American sources, he assigned Wiredu’s theory of “truth as opinion”, which critiques correspondence theory from an African perspective. Students still learned about the Western theories for context, but then saw Wiredu’s argument and debated it – thereby practicing analytic philosophy with familiar cultural references. This approach effectively “Africanized” the content while preserving the rigorous form of analytic inquiry. Initially, some colleagues feared this would confuse students, but Kwesi explained that analytic philosophy can be a methodological approach rather than a fixed canon of European texts. His innovation was a bottom-up approach, starting from local thinkers and problems and building up to general philosophical questions, rather than a top-down importation of foreign theories. Kwesi connected this to Robert Brandom’s inferentialism which also deals with bottom-up vs. top-down understanding of meaning.
By adopting such measures, Kwesi argued, intercultural philosophy benefits from combining local content with global methods. By reading an Akan philosopher analyzing truth, students learn both about their own philosophical heritage and about the analytic method of evaluating arguments. Such integration can gradually build a community of scholars comfortable in both worlds – able to publish in English journals and also contribute to Akan discourse.
Fieldwork and “Sage Philosophy” in Action
Throughout the talk, examples of experimental and field-based philosophy animated the theoretical points. Both Kwesi and other participants shared recent projects that illustrate how going to communities can yield philosophical insights. Kwesi recounted a collaborative project investigating “conceptions of the good life” in a rural Akan community. This study was partly inspired by the well-known Akan concept of personhood (onipa), which distinguishes a human being in the biological sense from a “person” in the normative, moral sense. Akan language allows one to say of a morally questionable person, “you are not a person,” meaning not that they are literally not human, but that they lack the moral qualities that make one worthy of being called a full person. Philosophers like Wiredu and Kwame Gyekye have written about this idea, suggesting that in traditional African thought, to live a good life is inherently tied to being a virtuous person in a community. Kwesi’s team wanted to test how contemporary Ghanaians in a village actually conceive a “good life” – whether notions of moral personhood still feature prominently or if other values have taken hold.
The findings were revealing. When villagers were asked generally “What is a good life? What must someone have or do to be living well?”, nearly all respondents equated the good life with material prosperity: having a nice house, a car, enough money, etc. Being of upright character or contributing to the community was initially not mentioned. The researchers tried gently probing: “What if a person has all those riches but lives isolated, doesn’t help others, even engages in vices or crime?” The villagers largely maintained that such a person still had a good life, because their material needs and comforts were met. They would concede that “he’s not a person” by Akan standards – i.e. not deserving of praise or trust – “but still, he is living a good life.” Even spirituality or piety was deemed non-essential: when asked if lacking spiritual devotion impairs a good life, people answered that one can still be living well without being religious. In short, modern economic realities dominated their concept of the good life, overshadowing the communal virtues that earlier theorists assumed to be central. Kwesi admitted he was a bit taken aback by this outcome. It suggested a disconnect between classical “ethno-philosophical” assertions and contemporary attitudes. When Wiredu and others wrote about African communalism and the primacy of moral personhood, they might have been extrapolating from proverbs and idealized narratives of tradition. But the lived priorities in a “very poor” community today are focused on tangible improvements – electricity, roads, jobs – not on whether the neighbors regard one as a “person” in the moral sense. As one villager implied, being called “no person” is fine as long as I have what I need; I can live with the community’s disapproval if I’m materially okay. This is a sobering insight: economic deprivation can reorder values, and normative concepts like personhood may lose salience under the pressures of modern life.
Rianna Oelofsen added another example of experimental philosophy. She is involved in a study asking Xhosa-speaking South Africans about their concept of “forgiveness.” Mirroring the approach Kwesi described, her team asks participants in their native language to define forgiveness, give examples, and judge scenarios: “Has forgiveness happened here?” They then compare responses with those of English-speaking participants. The aim is to see if cultural-linguistic differences lead to different understandings of what forgiveness entails. Oelofsen noted that such differences can have practical consequences: if two parties to a conflict from different cultural backgrounds mean different things by forgiveness, they may talk past each other and never achieve genuine reconciliation. This underscores how philosophical concepts (like forgiveness, personhood, justice) are not merely theoretical but guide real behavior and expectations. Discovering variation in these concepts could be key to improving cross-cultural dialogue and conflict resolution.
Both field studies – on the good life and on forgiveness – illustrate the fruitfulness of intertwining empirical research with philosophical analysis. They represent a new wave of intercultural philosophy that is experientially grounded. As Kwesi commented, this kind of work forces philosophers to “reflect on and analyze” what people actually think, rather than relying solely on inherited wisdom or foreign theories. It can confirm parts of the literature or present serious challenges to it. In the case of personhood, Kwesi mused that their findings might challenge the assumed centrality of that concept in modern life. He also speculated about forgiveness: perhaps rural communities conceive of forgiveness in more transactional terms (e.g. “I forgive but you must compensate me for the loss”), which would diverge from a purely moral or religious notion of unconditional forgiveness. If so, those results would prompt a reevaluation of certain claims in African ethics.
