Decolonial Philosophical Praxis Exemplified Through Superiorist and Adseredative Understandings of Development
Document Type
Book Chapter
Publication Date
11-7-2021
Department 1
Philosophy
Abstract
The violence which colonialism brought into reality must not only be processed by those who suffered from it, but also by those who committed it. We claim that this process of becoming decolonial has two parts: Africans can engage in continued adseredition – derived from the Latin expression, reditio ad se, to come back to oneself – and the Western world has to desuperiorize its self-understanding and actions. To demonstrate this, this chapter juxtaposes two texts: the 1956 Congolese Manifesto of Conscience Africaine and, 2017 The New European Consensus on Development. The Manifesto exemplifies the African commitment to its own liberation, while the superioristic understanding of development permeates the neo-liberal solutions which the New Consensus offers. Philosophically speaking, development is a non-issue in its superiorist understanding for African philosophers. It is a philosophical issue solely because the Western world continues to impose itself on Africa. The author argues that for the West, it is time to write a Manifesto of the Western Conscience in which the West studies itself and initiates a new philosophical Enlightenment that would force its praxis to adhere to its moral theories and foster an Africa-centric approach to development.
DOI
10.1007/978-3-030-70436-0_14
ISBN/ISSN
978-3-030-70435-3
Recommended Citation
Freter, B. (2022). Decolonial Philosophical Praxis Exemplified Through Superiorist and Adseredative Understandings of Development. In: Chimakonam, J.O., Etieyibo, E., Odimegwu, I. (eds) Essays on Contemporary Issues in African Philosophy. Springer, Cham. https://doi-org.ezpro.cc.gettysburg.edu/10.1007/978-3-030-70436-0_14
Required Publisher's Statement
The book containing this chapter is available from the publisher's website.