KNOWLEDGE IN TRADITIONAL AFRICAN PERSPECTIVE: A CRITIQUE
CHAPTER ONE
GENERAL INTRODUCTION
Aristotle many years ago asserted that it is the nature of man to know: in other words, every man seeks to know. In fact, philosophical activity started out of
the spirit of wonder when men were no longer satisfied with the mythological explanation of reality. It was their curiosity that sparked of this enormous
discipline man is awed by the stand back of mystery of the universe. Man stand back and ask himself question in order to understand the universe. Man has
ever been in search of the knowledge of the world. What is knowledge, what is its nature and scope, are questions that have attracted philosophers from various orientation or schools of thought.
The western philosophical tradition has been divided sharply on what constitutes the source of knowledge namely: Rationalism and Empiricism.
Unfortunately, this controversy has led to dualism in knowledge and consequence a bi-fraction of man should be considered as a metaphysical unit. Against
this extremism in knowledge, African proposes another criterion of acquiring knowledge. Anyanwu has correctly observed that:
……any appeal to empirical and rational methods has no meaning and relevance unless we know the basic assumption about the African cultural reality we
want to know1
The Africans as human being following the metaphysical imperative of human nature equally want to know, what is the nature of this knowledge? How do
we come to know the things we claim to know? Does consciousness constitute a philosophical data, without which his life cannot begin in the first place?
It is in light of the above question that we have decided to carry out a research titled “knowledge in Traditional African Perspective”.
