Paulin Hountondji and the Science Question in Africa

Zeyad el Nabolsy earned his B. Eng (Chemical Engineering) and M.A. (Philosophy) from McMaster University, and a PhD in Africana Studies (with a specialization in African philosophy) from Cornell University. He specializes in the history of Africana philosophy with a focus on modern African philosophy. He has previously published on Amílcar Cabral’s philosophy of culture, methodological debates about racism and ideology in the historiography of philosophy, Olaudah Equiano as a philosopher, classical German philosophy (especially Kant and Hegel), Paulin Hountondji’s philosophy of science, modern African political and social philosophy (with a focus on African Marxism), African philosophy and its relationship to African literature, and ancient Egyptian philosophy. He is currently working on a comparative intellectual history of nineteenth African philosophy with a focus on James Africanus Beale Horton (in West Africa) and Rifa'a al-Tahtawi (in Egypt).

• Introduction.- 1 Hountondji between Husserl and Althusser.- 2 Towards a Synthesis between the Hessen-Grossman Thesis and Dependency Theory.- 3 Colonialism and Systematic Under-Education.- 4 Hountondji on the Relationship between Endogenous Knowledge and Modern Science.- 5 Modern Science and the Demarcation Problem in African Philosophy.- 6 Concluding Remarks on Hountondji’s Framework for the Study of Scientific Dependency.