Panel 123: “Henry Odera Oruka: Sagacious Reasoning”

Henry Odera Oruka (1944 – 1995) of University of Nairobi was one of the most prolific philosophical thinkers in Africa in the 20th century. Odera Oruka first studied philosophy at Uppsala University, and he has acknowledged the important influence of his teachers, most notably Prof. Ingemar Hedenius. In 1970 he obtained his Licentiate in Practical Philosophy on the theme of “Liberty” at Uppsala, and in 1993 Uppsala awarded an honorary doctorate to him. Well known is his Sage Philosophy project (started in 1974). Sage Philosophy undertakes the attempt to identify individual philosophers in traditional African communities. Academically trained philosophers went to village communities to make interviews about philosophical topics (like truth, God, questions of a good life) with people identified as sages by their own communities. The talks were recorded and later analysed. Today Sage philosophy has prominent critics as well as supporters. Less well known is Odera Oruka’s extensive work on Ethics, which has had two main targets:

- The liberation of philosophy in Africa from ethnological and racist prejudices

- The reconstruction of the dimension of sagacity, which lies in the ethical commitment of philosophers, their trials to apply the results of their thinking for the well-being of their communitieties