PHIL 112 Introduction to African Philosophy

This course is an interdisciplinary introduction to the worldview of traditional African philosophy using the categories and methods of Western philosophy and including the historical and cultural milieu of Africa as well as African visual arts and proverbs, African drumming, dance, and song, as repositories of and ways to express traditional African philosophical wisdom.

Credits

1

Prerequisite

Eligible to enroll in ENGL 121

Hours Weekly

1

Course Objectives

1. Identify and organize the concepts in Traditional African philosophy using metaphysics (the nature of the self and the cosmos), epistemology (how one knows reliably), and axiology (values and the living of a moral life).
2. Consider the possibilities that exist within Traditional African concepts of personhood, community, consensus governing, and ubuntu as shapers of Traditional African ethical perspectives and one’s own core beliefs about how one should interact with the world and other people.
3. Analyze and evaluate Traditional African and Western approaches to being (metaphysics), knowing (epistemology), and valuing (axiology) as paths for navigating human existence and making ethical choices.

Course Objectives

1. Identify and organize the concepts in Traditional African philosophy using metaphysics (the nature of the self and the cosmos), epistemology (how one knows reliably), and axiology (values and the living of a moral life).

   This objective is a course Goal Only

   Learning Activity Artifact

   • Other (please fill out box below)
   • Analytic paper one and two

   Procedure for Assessing Student Learning

   • Critical and Creative Thinking Rubric

   Critical Thinking

   • CT1

   Ethics Goals

   • ET1
2. Consider the possibilities that exist within Traditional African concepts of personhood, community, consensus governing, and ubuntu as shapers of Traditional African ethical perspectives and one’s own core beliefs about how one should interact with the world and other people.

   This objective is a course Goal Only

   Learning Activity Artifact

   • Other (please fill out box below)
   • Analytic papers one and two, final online discussion

   Procedure for Assessing Student Learning

   • Critical and Creative Thinking Rubric

   Critical Thinking

   • CT2

   Ethics Goals

   • ET2
3. Analyze and evaluate Traditional African and Western approaches to being (metaphysics), knowing (epistemology), and valuing (axiology) as paths for navigating human existence and making ethical choices.

   This objective is a course Goal Only

   Learning Activity Artifact

   • Other (please fill out box below)
   • Final online discussion

   Procedure for Assessing Student Learning

   • Critical and Creative Thinking Rubric

   Critical Thinking

   • CT3
   • CT4

   Global Competency

   • GC4

   Ethics Goals

   • ET3