Ontological Foundation of African Philosophy: A Hermeneutic Comparison of the Ontologies of Janheinz and Anyanwu K.C.

Abstract: Philosophy is a critical or systematic approach towards unravelling the mysteries of nature. It is an inquiry into facts of life, a quest for knowledge, and an incursion into providing answers to life's most important questions. Different peoples and cultures make frantic efforts in this philosophical search, contextually interpreting reality in a bid to make meaning of life. The compounding problem of life that flows from the magnitude of existential phenomena makes it inevitable to adopt different methods of approach given divergencies of age, race, background and exposure. People of differs colour and orientations strive in their own way as DU Bois observed, to develop for civilization, a particular message, a particular ideal which help to guide the world nearer to the perfection they seek. Africans are not exempted from this curiosity as great African scholars have delved into researches, trying to find out the contents of African taught pattern and the implication to knowledge, all in a bid to form a body of knowledge called African philosophy. A good number of African philosophers have come out with one idea or the other as regards what African philosophy is, the content and what it actually represents. While some project worldview as African philosophy, some will have African philosophy to be mere sage philosophy. Some dismissed the synonym ‘Africa’ as attached to philosophy under the bias that philosophy is universal and therefore any attempt to identify it with a particular people should be rejected. However, there is a great match by contemporary African philosophers to discuss African philosophy from the point of view of methodological approach, such asOkere’s insistence on hermeneutical method as the ground for engaging in discussion on African philosophy, and Kagame’s preference for linguistic analysis.   The task herein is not as such on discussing methods of African philosophy, but rather a look in what actually constitute African philosophy as regards its essential content. It is on the strength of this position that we tend to discuss the essentials of African Philosophy with particular reference to the works of Janhheinz Jahn and K.C. Anyanwu. The essence is to see how through discovering the "essentials" in African Philosophy, a foundation can be formed for the understanding of African taught pattern, as well as the interconnectivity of the various branches of philosophy from African perspective.