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Debt and Duty: Kant, Derrida, and African Philosophy

Bruce B. Janz
Augustana University College

I. Derrida and the Place of Philosophy

When one thinks of Derrida, Kant, and the university, the work that immediately comes to mind
is Derrida’s 1980 paper "Mochlos: or, the Conflict of the Faculties," contained in the volume
edited by Richard Rand known as Logomachia: The Conflict of the Faculties.1 Less known, but
also concerned with Kant and the place of philosophy in the university, is his paper "Of the
Humanities and the Philosophical Discipline" in the ejournal Surfaces.2 This paper arose from a
talk he gave at UNESCO and was followed, two issues later, by a roundtable discussion based on
the paper.

Both "Mochlos" and "Of the Humanities" begin with a similar question. "Mochlos" begins, "If we
could say we (but have I not already said it?), we might perhaps ask ourselves: where are we?"
"Of the Humanities" begins, "I will begin with the question, "where?" Not directly with the
question, "where are we?" or "where have we come to?" but "where does the question of the
right to philosophy take place?," which can be immediately translated by "where ought it take
place?" Similar questions, but not identical: the earlier paper asks, "where are we", while the later
paper asks not "where are we" but "where does the question of the right to philosophy take
place?"

Where? And what is the answer that each paper gives to the question? In "Mochlos", Derrida
outlines Kant’s attempt to position philosophy as a speaker of truth over against the faculties
which operate in the interests of an outside interest. "Mochlos" has been much discussed both in
Logomachia and elsewhere.3 Derrida, in familiar style, takes a classic (if neglected) text and
teases out a new set of meanings than are apparent at first reading. Kant’s point was to position
philosophy against the professional disciplines which were sponsored by a higher authority.
Philosophy (taken broadly as the liberal disciplines) is regarded as the "lower" faculty which
nevertheless has access to the truth of propositions precisely because it acts from freedom, rather
than from the imperatives of revelation, the state, or the courts. As such, philosophy should be
left alone to pursue its own objectives (rather than be censured by the state), because without
some discipline to focus on truth, human reason is not truly represented. The higher disciplines
are useful tools to obtain certain goals, but cannot "police" themselves, since they do not have
the ability to discern whether their stated ends are the result of reason or simply inclination. So,
each faculty brings its unique abilities, not in a war but in a dialectical process that has a similar
goal.

Derrida does not of course take Kant’s optimistic progressivism very seriously, nor does he
imagine that philosophy has some access to either pure reason or eternal Truth. He chooses to
focus on another word: responsibility. Responsibility has nothing to do with keeping the

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university "pure," in part because there is no "pure" language on which to base it4; rather, it
recognises what Kant saw, that there is a conflict in the university between autonomy or reason
and action. Kant no doubt thought that philosophy brought clarity to the ad-hoc world of affairs
represented by the higher disciplines; Derrida is more likely to invert that opposition, to recognise
that action has its own clarity that is undermined by the conflicted language that philosophy
engages in. The memorable image that Derrida invokes is of the anthropomorphic university,
walking on two feet, each step possible only because one foot is pressing against the foundation
of the other foot. Autonomous reason takes off from the grounding of traditional law. Active
affairs in the world take off from the performances of language available as an object of inquiry
to philosophy. No longer "higher" and "lower," we now have side by side, each moving because
of the resistance of the other, each leveraging against the other.

In "Of the Humanities," on the other hand, Derrida is less interested in establishing the place of
philosophy in a conflicted academy, and more interested in exploring the ways in which the
"cosmopolitical" ideal of Kant’s makes any sense today. Unlike "Mochlos," Derrida looks outside
rather than inside the academy. He points out that Kant argues that it is the unsociability of men
which nature uses to push us toward constructing artificial institutions, which bring about peace.
Our natural unsociability eventually makes possible the ends of reason and the production of the
institutions of European modernity. In other words, Kant recognises that philosophy is founded
on conflict and division. To go back to philosophy’s origin to discover its purpose cannot
therefore be a matter of finding a unified and coherent point. Memory must take into account
Greco-European origins, but it must also recognise the conflicted nature of those origins. This
means that universalist understandings of philosophy must be resisted (no surprise there), but also
it also means engaging philosophy in non-traditional languages, in ways that recognises both the
traditional and the new aspects of the problems of philosophy.

The door then seems to be open to African philosophy to find its place. But while the door may
be ajar, we must find the way to walk through it.

II. African Philosophy and its Communities

The place of philosophy is in relation to its communities. It has, to use Derrida’s phrase, its debts
and duties. Derrida’s contribution is to recognise that truth can be expressed from this place
precisely because of the place philosophy occupies, rather than some special faculty of
philosophy to apprehend eternal verities. He also enables us to consider the ways in which
philosophy does serve to challenge the pretensions of those disciplines which deem themselves to
be place-less, or regard themselves as em-placed in such a way as to simply combine their unique
talents to solve a difficult problem.

So, what is it to do philosophy in this place? This stands as a counterpoint to the metaphysical
questions, usually the first questions asked by African philosophers themselves, which is "What is
African philosophy?" or "Does African philosophy exist?" It also stands against the bureaucratic
question, the question asked by African universities and politicians when it comes time to restrict
budgets and opposition: Is African philosophy good for anything?

Derrida’s answer to "where", for philosophy in general, evokes the image of the human, walking
with both right and left feet, bracing each foot against the other to move forward. This figure, of
course, is more like a golem than a human being, for it does not have a control centre that gives it
grace and agility. There is nothing natural about this being; rather, more like an anti-romantic,
larger than life creation, it staggers forward to a destination as yet unknown.

Where. By the time of "Of the Humanities," this golem has a bit more character, and the question

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of direction is put more broadly. Instead of asking about the place of philosophy in the academy,
Derrida through Kant asks about the place of philosophy in the world. Kant wants to imagine a
universal (and therefore philosophical) history, but as Derrida points out this project stands in
danger of becoming literature, that is, of simply being a representation having no basis in reality.
To resist the possibility that universal history or philosophy might just be literature, Kant takes his
starting point from the history of Greece and Rome, as opposed to the "barbaric" nations. So, the
cosmopolitical becomes rooted in the hegemony of Europe.

So, where is African philosophy, then? It becomes all the more paradoxical, not just as the
juxtaposition of a conceptual universal with a geographical particular, but as the juxtaposition of
a tradition of thought that does not have its roots in Kant’s story about how we tell our grand
history, and how we keep it from just becoming an interesting story with no basis in reality.
African philosophy cannot be delivered from the paradox through the ersatz inclusion that is
afforded Chinese or Indian philosophy, as its textual history is much less clear, and its potential
for conversation with Western philosophy much less obvious. It is outside the "history of reason"
that makes sense out of it, and that brings it into the oppositional role that Derrida describes so
well in "Mochlos." As Emmanuel Eze has argued, Kant marginalises the African as a postulate of
pure reason in his writings on geography.5 So, if African philosophy’s place is to be identified, it
seems much more problematic to link it to this grand tale as Kant does. Needless to say, Derrida
is not going to remain in this place.

Adding to the problems, however, is that there are layers of "place" that African philosophy
encounters. It is one thing to ask about the place of African philosophy, but that question, like all
platial questions has many possibilities. If a person was to respond to the question "Where are
you?", that person would find many answers that point not only to geotemporal politics ("I am in
Alberta," a designation that would not have made sense 1000 years ago, even standing in the
same "place" in relation to "natural" landmarks) but also to bodily position (I am at my desk),
comportment (I am at work), relation (I am son of Jacob, in my family tree – I have a place in a
lineage), spatial designators (I am at a certain longitude and latitude), and origin (I am where I am
from). "Where are you?" cannot be asked without also asking "Who are you?" And while neither
of these questions affords a single answer and both are always undermined by their binary
oppositions, the question "where are you?" in particular gives a plenitude of answers.

This is the problem for African philosophy. Indeed, one might argue it is the problem for any
philosophy, but most others live with the accretions of certainty about their own place, such that
the plenitude of answers cannot show forth. In this sense African philosophy has a great deal to
teach philosophy from the rest of the world. The problem, as I suggest, is that African philosophy
is not in no-place, but in a plenitude of places, and many of these turn out to contradict each
other. This golem would not walk very far, for it has more than the "right foot" of the higher
disciplines to concern itself with. Leverage becomes much more difficult when the other end of
the lever is so varied, multiple, and contradictory. African philosophy’s leverage is in its tension,
but it can only happen when the whole lever apparatus is in some way continuous with
philosophy, part of philosophy’s communities.

To what am I referring? African philosophy finds itself at the heart of an artificial institution that
has only a relatively recent history in Africa, and a history that has tended to replicate the
methodologies of the West. We tend not to ask whether there is an African physics or biology.
We do talk of African sociology and anthropology, although as often as not that refers to an
object of study that has its origins in the Western academy. We also speak of African literature
and religion; when these are not disguised anthropological designations, they tend to be regarded
as expressions of Africanity which beg the question of the nature of that elusive category.

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African philosophy falls into this sometimes, but it also stands in opposition to these sorts of
reductions. It draws on "traditional" African thought in the form of sage philosophy, proverb
philosophy, and even ethnophilosophy, yet it stands in uneasy tension to the less critical forms of
these as well. In the perennial question "What is African philosophy?", there is really the
question: "What place does African philosophy find itself, and where is it made possible?"
Derrida shows us the problems of simply relying on tradition; what Derrida does not show us is
the way that this African tradition, though fragmented and contradictory, can form a part of the
African understanding of the university. The university did not originate in Africa, but just as
philosophy need not be in Greek or German to be "authentic," so the African university need not
find its unique indigenous origin to avoid being seen as derivative.

African philosophy also finds itself in oppositions within the academy itself. Not only is it both
inside and outside an academy whose history is elsewhere, but it is also in tension with other
disciplines within that academy. "Mochlos" has already pointed out how this might be possible in
the Western context; we might add to Derrida’s gloss on Kant that African philosophy also has to
consider its position in relation to other disciplines and the university structure in Africa itself. It
not only brings "truth" as reflective critique to those disciplines that operate on the mandate of
political authorities; it also must raise to question the position of those disciplines in relation to
the Western academy they replicate. African sociology, for instance, may not only make itself
useful to a set of political imperatives, but may also attempt to uncritically replicate the
methodologies of Western sociology without asking whether they are appropriate for a particular
setting. If the methodologies of the social sciences, in particular, are not raised to question, they
will continue to be answers to epistemological questions that have their history elsewhere, and do
not have an understanding of local knowledge.

And this raises another opposition that African philosophy finds itself in: African philosophy
finds itself as a junior member of a discipline that, more often than not, does not acknowledge its
existence. While the APA has begun holding panels at its conferences on African philosophy, it is
a long way from being accepted in philosophy departments outside of Africa (indeed, sometimes
even within Africa) as a relevant and interesting aspect of philosophy. Is it possible that African
philosophy is the left foot of Western philosophy, reflectively critiquing it even as it becomes the
"higher disciplines" and follows its own political path?

Finally (although not exhaustively), African philosophy stands in opposition to the governments
in the countries in which it operates. "What is the use of African philosophy?", ask those who
have the power. What they mean is, what use is African philosophy to me, to this government?
Can we, for example, find ways of supporting an existing political ideology in such a way that
intellectuals will be brought on side? It is no accident that there is a department of government at
the University of Nairobi, but not a department of Political Studies. Political studies implies there
might be more than one way of reflecting on governance, and that represents a threat to the
existing regime. A department of government, on the other hand, studies the current political
structure and finds ways to make it more efficient. Kant may have been overly optimistic when
he claimed that the lower faculty of philosophy need not come in conflict with the government at
all, since it’s conversations are all with the higher faculties, not with the ruling powers.

Can philosophy avoid being co-opted by government in this way? One can imagine that the more
philosophy researches traditional structures of conflict resolution or attempts to make clear the
critical reflective capacity in traditional societies (which is what sage philosophy does), the more
a government could either see this as a threat to be suppressed or a tool to be co-opted.
Philosophy may try to take a safe path, by hiding behind Western questions and techniques of
thought. This is indeed what has happened in some places. Philosophy may advocate for change
along certain ideological lines, which has also happened. Or, philosophy may find a way to act as

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the left foot to the powers that govern African society itself.

Derrida speaks to this:

There are other ways for philosophy than those of appropriation as expropriation (to lose
one's memory by assimilating the memory of the other, the one being opposed to the other,
as if an ex-appropriation was not possible, indeed the only possible chance). Not only are
there other ways for philosophy, but philosophy, if there is any such thing, is the other
way. And it has always been the other way: philosophy has never been the unfolding
responsible for a unique, originary assignation linked to a unique language or to the place
of a sole people. Philosophy does not have one sole memory. Under its Greek name and in
its European memory, it has always been bastard, hybrid, grafted, multilinear and polyglot.
We must adjust our practice of the history of philosophy, our practice of history and of
philosophy, to this reality which was also a chance and which more than ever remains a
chance.6

If indeed philosophy has always been "bastard, hybrid, grafted, multilinear and polyglot," this has
not been obvious to all. The teaching of philosophy follows well-worn narratives, and when it
comes time to consider the possibility of African philosophy, it simply fits into the narratives that
already exist. This narrative, to be sure, glosses over the debts that "Western" philosophy has to
other cultures, not to mention other disciplines and modes of thought. But it forces the issue
within those who champion African philosophy to either try to construct entirely new narratives
(forgetting that hybridity does not disappear just because the scholar wants it to) to show how the
narratives of the West are really rooted in African patterns of thought (as if this makes any
difference to the one already convinced of the primacy of Western thought), or to show how
African thought fits well within existing Western narratives (a strategy that will always leave
African thought on the margins of that narrative).

Derrida takes up the question of philosophy outside of Western contexts:

At stake is neither contenting oneself with reaffirming a certain history, a certain memory
of origins or of the Western history (Mediterranean or Central European, Greco-
Roman-Arab or Germanic) of philosophy, nor contenting oneself with being opposed to, or
opposing denial to, this memory and to these languages, but rather trying to displace the
fundamental schema of this problematic by going beyond the old, tiresome, worn-out and
wearisome opposition between Eurocentrism and anti-Eurocentrism. One of the conditions
for getting there - and one won't get there all of a sudden in one try, it will be the effect of
a long and slow historical labor that is under way - is the active becoming-aware of the fact
that philosophy is no longer determined by a program, an originary language or tongue
whose memory it would suffice to recover so as to discover its destination, that philosophy
is no more assigned to its origin or by its origin, than it is simply, spontaneously or
abstractly cosmopolitical or universal. What we have lived and what we are more and
more aiming for are modes of appropriation and transformation of the philosophical in
non-European languages and cultures. Such modes of appropriation and transformation
amount neither to the classical mode of appropriation that consists in making one's own
what belongs to the other (here, in interiorizing the Western memory of philosophy and in
assimilating it in one's own language) nor to the invention of new modes of thought which,
as alien to all appropriation, would no longer have any relation to what one believes one
recognizes under the name of philosophy.7

While the "wearisome opposition" between Eurocentrism and anti-Eurocentrism may be

prematurely declared for some, Derrida’s point is important to recognise. Philosophy cannot be

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determined by a program – this means that African philosophy cannot be regarded as a derivative
form of Western philosophy. At the same time, it cannot be required to "invent new modes of
thought" in order to establish its legitimacy. It does not have to recover its memory in a European
language – despite Heidegger’s contention, Greek and German are not the most basic of
philosophical languages.

III. What is it to do philosophy in this place?

Where is African philosophy? While it would be nice to say that African philosophy has been
clear about the points that Derrida raises, the truth is that it is far from the case. It was once the
case that the central question on the minds of African philosophers was, is there such a thing as
African philosophy? It was understandable that this should be such a concern. Philosophers have
always tried to begin with definitions. And, apart from that, the historical reality has been that
Africans have been shut out of the philosophical world quite deliberately. Kant, Hegel, Hume and
others all theorized a racism that served to support European self-perceptions, and at the same
time rendered Africans as incapable of reflective thought. This century, a host of anthropologists
have done research on the "primitive" mentality, or the "savage mind." If Africans had any
possibility of reflective life, Western research bound it by tradition and explained away any
glimmer of conceptual thought as derived from outside. Africans, it was argued, had little or no
textual record; they had a sense of time that precluded reflection on the distant future; they were
incorrigibly religious and traditional; they were more oriented toward emotion than reason. Then,
Father Placide Tempels wrote his Bantu Philosophy, and people started thinking of Africans as
having a robust intellectual life, albeit uncritical, non-textual, and communally held.

From the time of Tempels, a steady stream of African philosophers have tried to identify the
anchor-point for African philosophy, that which would both be universal and also have
geographical, racial, or national origins. Tempels’ work has been the controversial point of
embarkation on this trip, and as often as not he has been criticised for various aspects of his
work. African philosophy has been trying to pack its bags to leave on the trip, and many
philosophers have grown impatient with the constant need to define a beginning point before
embarking. The question that is not asked, however, is where? Where is African philosophy? Its
history is instead that of asking What? What is it, what is its essence, can we define the territory
before we leave on the trip? Can we find a foundation? If Derrida has taught us anything, that
sort of question is doomed to always leave us packing our bags, and never allow the trip to begin.

As I have argued, African philosophy has multiple communities. This is no surprise; all
endeavours of this sort are in multiple communities. So, what is it to do philosophy in this place?
Several observations:

1. It is first to take its own history of exclusion into account. African philosophy would not be
what it is if it did not come to terms with the place it has been put by the rest of the world. Yet,
like any discussion of place, it is not enough to account for history. That is not the only
responsibility that African philosophy has, nor is the international philosophical community the
only one where debts are owed. And, as Derrida said, simply operating on the basis of the
dialectic of appropriation and alienation does not take into account the place of African
philosophy.

What is needed is to take seriously the possibility raised by several writers (e.g., David Hoy,
Charles Taylor) in discussing Gadamer’s hermeneutics, that theory itself is bound by its own
history. This seems so obvious as to be banal, but in fact too often both Western and African
thinkers forget this and try to transplant theory without reflection on the place out of which it
comes. So, replicating Enlightenment thought, even hermeneutics and other "continental"

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philosophies extend their reach, either through Western theorists or African theorists. But it is not
just any continent that we refer to when we speak of continental philosophy. It has its place. It is
a set of answers to a certain set of questions, concerning the development of modernity, science,
technology, subjectivity, and so forth. What if the place you find yourself in is different than this?
The answer, I think, is that theory has to grow from its own ground.

2. It means to theorise democracy in new ways. Derrida argues in "On the Humanities" that some
version of democracy is necessary for philosophical thought to flourish (a position, incidentally,
that echoes several African philosophers such as Odera Oruka and Wiredu). One might argue
that, in fact, good philosophy has been done in less than democratic situations, and that would be
true. However, this is not a quasi-Kantian argument for the conditions of the possibility of doing
philosophy, but the direction of philosophy. Critical theory will necessarily democratise, since it
will question oppressive structures and modes of self-interest. This is not to say that interesting
philosophy has not been done in the interests of the few, but rather that dogged questioning,
taking into account the particulars of a place, will yield the seeds of the intellectual undermining
of an oppressive regime.

3. Philosophising in Africa means attending to language in the face of essentially technocratic

disciplines. In "Mochlos" Derrida suggests that philosophy always attends to truth, and in this
way the golem moves. In Africa, this may mean that philosophy can attend to showing the
particular limitations of disciplinary answers to Africa’s problems. Specifically, the language that
is pressed into service to account for African lives often needs deconstruction. Africa is perhaps
more prone than Western societies to be subjected to the ministrations of disciplinary expertise.
Economists interpret the problems of Africa as economic problems, with economic solutions, and
when these do not work, it is not the method which is the problem but the "uncivilised" and
"uncooperative" Africans. Even versions of interdisciplinarity do not help, because they simply
try to add methodologies together to address a problem which is itself never really interrogated
properly. Instead of the problems of Africa being economic, then, they take the interdisciplinary
label "development," and ironically become more intractable because the specific methodologies
involved in answering the problem of development become harder to discern.

Philosophy can use the tools of the place, the African traditional setting, to demonstrate that
expertise cannot afford to ignore local knowledge. Rather than talking about African traditional
knowledge, philosophy can make it possible to dialogue with this traditional knowledge. The
purpose is not some romantic regression to the past, as if that will solve the problems, but rather
to raise the methodological answers to specifically African questioning, and thereby root real
answers in a specific soil while at the same time taking advantage of the wealth of world
experience. Philosophy is perhaps uniquely equipped in Africa to do this, but has yet to realise
this potential.

4. African philosophy must face up to the question of the relationship between tradition and
modernity. It is quite different from ways that the West has taken up the issues, and to this point
African philosophy has either ignored tradition or found ways to uncritically mine it. In this
place, where tradition is used by some as the object of loathing and by others as the object of
desire (two sides of the same coin), philosophy might theorise just how cultural tradition can be
taken seriously.

African philosophy is in a unique position, able to draw on the resources of the rest of the world
while at the same time able to question its place in a unique way, a way that at least the West has
forgotten. Derrida is right, the memory of the West is faulty if it does not recognize the
fragmented and conflicted nature of its origins. It is quite possible that the only way that conflict
can be recognised is by mediating it through African philosophy. African thought is not worth

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pursuing only because it can give a window on Western thought, but that is a useful by-product.

Endnotes

1. Jacques Derrida, "Mochlos, or, the Conflict of the Faculties" in Logomachia: The Conflict of
the Faculties (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1992: 1-34).

2. Jacques Derrida, Of the Humanities and the Philosophical Discipline: The Right to Philosophy
from the Cosmopolitical Point of View (the Example of an International Institution). Surfaces
Vol. IV. 310 Folio 1 (1994), Montréal. For the roundtable discussion based on this paper, see
Surfaces Vol. VI. 108 (V.1.0A - 16/08/1996).

3. See, for instance, Bill Readings, The University in Ruins (Cambridge, MA & London: Harvard
University Press, 1996); Simon Wortham, Rethinking the University: Leverage and
Deconstruction (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1999).

4. Derrida, "Mochlos", pp. 19-20.

5. Emmanuel Eze. "The Colour of Reason" in Eze, Emmanuel, Postcolonial African Philosophy:
A Critical Reader. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1997.

6. Derrida, "Of the Humanities and the Philosophical Discipline".

7. Derrida, "Of the Humanities and the Philosophical Discipline".

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