An African Communitarian View of Epistemic Responsibility

Abstract

In this article, I venture into a fairly underexplored area of African epistemic normativity. I seek to consider how the question of responsibility might be approached differently if values salient in African communitarian thinking are critically explored. I argue that while one may find almost a uniform framework for the determination of epistemic responsibility in different philosophical traditions based on the rational scheme, in the dominant African communitarian tradition, there is more to responsibility than just individualistic traits like rationality. My argument is based on the premise that, responsibility in African epistemological thinking is viewed from a communitarian perspective. According to this view, despite most of African communitarian knowledge conforming to the consciousness and control tests of the rational scheme, communitarian philosophy still remains cardinal in defining the aspect of responsibility on the part of both the individual and the community. I, therefore, partly make critical comparisons between a Western and African concept of responsibility as I seek to justify the plausibility of an African model of responsibility based on communitarian habits and culture.