Summary of African Traditional Thought and Western Science by Robin Horton
- Submitted by: ladyasaph
- Views: 2289
- Category: Other
- Date Submitted: 10/11/2010 06:46 AM
- Pages: 8
- Report this Essay
Summary of African Traditional Thought and Western Science by Robin Horton
This chapter is about Robin Horton trying to explain African traditional thought using the approach of its similarity’s to western thoughts. He explains that there are two reasons why social anthropologists do not understand African philosophical thoughts. The first reason is most anthropologists are not familiar “with the theoretical thinking of their own culture”. Secondly, those who understand their culture’s theoretical thinking do not see the similarities in African traditional thoughts, because of the difference in idiom that represent the same thing or idea. Therefore, Robin uses similarities in western and African thoughts to help us understand African philosophy better. His approach is to propound some theories on the nature and function of theoretical thinking and show how traditional African religious thinking exhibits these characteristics. This approach is often said to present traditional thoughts as a form of scientific thought. However, he clearly stated that African philosophical thought is not a science and he promised to prove that in other chapters of this paper or book.
The first proposition he made is “the quest for explanatory theory is basically the quest for unity underlying apparent diversity; for simplicity underlying apparent complexity; for order underlying apparent disorder; for regularity underlying anomaly.” This simply means theoretical thinking seeks to explain observations by elaborating the forces that operate behind the common-sense observation. These forces form the structure by which the observations are interrupted. In African tradition thoughts, the gods of a given culture form this system by which the world of observations is interpreted. According to Horton these forces that underlie common-sense observation must be of a limited number of kinds and their behavior must be governed by a limited number of general principles. Modern writers believe...
This chapter is about Robin Horton trying to explain African traditional thought using the approach of its similarity’s to western thoughts. He explains that there are two reasons why social anthropologists do not understand African philosophical thoughts. The first reason is most anthropologists are not familiar “with the theoretical thinking of their own culture”. Secondly, those who understand their culture’s theoretical thinking do not see the similarities in African traditional thoughts, because of the difference in idiom that represent the same thing or idea. Therefore, Robin uses similarities in western and African thoughts to help us understand African philosophy better. His approach is to propound some theories on the nature and function of theoretical thinking and show how traditional African religious thinking exhibits these characteristics. This approach is often said to present traditional thoughts as a form of scientific thought. However, he clearly stated that African philosophical thought is not a science and he promised to prove that in other chapters of this paper or book.
The first proposition he made is “the quest for explanatory theory is basically the quest for unity underlying apparent diversity; for simplicity underlying apparent complexity; for order underlying apparent disorder; for regularity underlying anomaly.” This simply means theoretical thinking seeks to explain observations by elaborating the forces that operate behind the common-sense observation. These forces form the structure by which the observations are interrupted. In African tradition thoughts, the gods of a given culture form this system by which the world of observations is interpreted. According to Horton these forces that underlie common-sense observation must be of a limited number of kinds and their behavior must be governed by a limited number of general principles. Modern writers believe...