Dismas A. Masolo

The Status of Oral Traditions in the History of Philosophy: Methodological Considerations

7.-9. September 2023, Universität Hildesheim

Dismas A. Masolo

On Record: Which Record? Whose Record?

The Location of Thought and its Expressivity

I want to argue in my paper that the very question of the conference theme is a modernist-capitalist assumption that there is something “superior” or at least “better” about the written expression of thought than what is assumed here to be its antithesis or opposite, the “oral.” Analysis, or description of the non-written thought as a search into a past that is considered historically dead or decadent, is a false assumption about how and where thought as content or substance of thinking happens. Preservation and transmission, which are the unique values of writing, do not replace the oral as the first language of the mind in the formation and appearance of thought. In my paper, I try to explain that thought, of whatever type and on whatever subject, appears first and primarily in the orality of the mind.

Dismas A. Masolo is Professor of Philosophy and Distinguished University Scholar at the University of Louisville. He teaches courses at both the undergraduate and graduate levels, covering a wide range of courses in the traditional Western and non-Western fields, and ranging from introductory courses to twentieth-century philosophical movements and comparative courses in the Humanities doctoral program. Because of his international visibility and expertise in African philosophy, Prof. Masolo travels widely to give invited talks and to serve as external examiner for Master’s theses and doctoral dissertations. His own work has been the focus of international philosophical symposia. In addition to serving as external examiner or speaker at numerous national and international professional forums, Prof. Masolo has held teaching positions and Fellowships at several places besides Louisville. He has held teaching positions at various universities in Kenya (University of Nairobi, Kenyatta University, Egerton University, The Consolata Philosophical Institute, and the Catholic University of East Africa), and has been a holder of the Fulbright, Rockefeller, and Zora Neal Hurston Fellowships at several American universities including Purdue (Fulbright), Northwestern (Zora Neal Hurston), Rice (Rockefeller), and the University of Pennsylvania (Rockefeller). Prof. Masolo was born and brought up under the British colonial rule in his native Kenya, and was awarded a doctoral degree in philosophy at the Università Gregoriana in Rome, Italy. Prof. Masolo’s research interests reflect a critical awareness of this personal and cultural history by seeking to analyze, explain, and understand, first, philosophical traditions as both part and functions of social histories and, two, the philosophical significance of African cultures and their contributions to philosophical discourses in a global context. In this context, Prof. Masolo’s work intersects with the global perspectives and interests in Pan-African Studies and the Humanities Programs at the University of Louisville. His publications include Menkiti On Community and Becoming a Person (with E. Etieyibo e P. Ikuenobe, 2020), History of Philosophy as a Problem: Our Case (2018), Les défis de la modernité: l'Afrique et la nouvelle communauté invisible (2011).