Kwasi Wiredu
1931-2022 · African Philosophy · Little-known
Which Western ideas survive translation into an African language, and which fall apart on the way? Wiredu, a Ghanaian who helped start modern African philosophy, made that test his life's work and called it conceptual decolonization. African philosophy has to think in its own concepts. From Akan practice he defended government by consensus, and a view of the self as something the community makes.
Signature
The position Wiredu is most identified with in the Profiler:
- Society
- mildly leans Collectivism
- Government
- Direct Democracy / Communal Order
Positions on the 4 axes the sources answer
- Society
- mildly leans Collectivism (33 on a 0–100 scale from Collectivism to Individualism)
- Order
- leans Horizontal (75 on a 0–100 scale from Vertical to Horizontal)
- Opposition
- leans Concurrence (75 on a 0–100 scale from Sublation to Concurrence)
- Polity
- mildly leans Liberalism (67 on a 0–100 scale from Illiberalism to Liberalism)
16 of 20 axes are left blank: the sources do not answer them, or Wiredu refused the framing. Nothing is imputed; a blank is not a middling score.
Foundational questions
- Theology
- Agnosticism
What is your position on the existence and nature of God or gods? - Government
- Direct Democracy / Communal Order
What is your ideal form of government? - Highest Good
- Harmony
What is the highest good? - Good and Evil
- Personal Judgment
What is the fundamental nature of good and evil? - Knowledge
- Pragmatic Test
What is the ultimate foundation of knowledge? - Ethics Basis
- Relational
What is the ultimate basis of ethics? - Agency
- Compatibilism
What is the nature of human agency and freedom? - Time
- Ancestral Time
What is the fundamental shape of time? - Authority
- Consent of the Governed
What is the legitimate source of authority? - Language
- Language-Game
What is the fundamental nature of language? - Law
- Common Law / Customary Law
What is the ultimate source of legitimate law? - Death
- Ancestral Presence
What happens at death? - Human Nature
- Innate Good
What is human nature? - Primary Bond
- Family / Place
What is your primary bond and loyalty?