For several decades, intercultural philosophers have produced an extensive body of scholarly work aimed at mutual intercultural understanding. They have focused on the ideal of intercultural dialogue that is supported by dialogue principles and virtuous attitudes. However, this ideal is challenged by decolonial scholarship as one which neglects power inequalities. Decolonial scholars have emphasized the differences between cultures and worldviews, shifting the focus to colonial history and radical alterity. In return, intercultural philosophers have worried about the very possibility of dialogue (...) and mutual understanding in frameworks that use coloniality as their singular pole of analysis. In this paper, we explore the complex relations between decolonial and intercultural philosophies. While we diagnose tensions between both intellectual discourses, we argue that these tensions turn out to be productive: for intercultural philosophers, decolonial challenges provide an opportunity to critically rethink ideals of equitable dialogue in light of colonial inequity and its deep entrenchment in global philosophical encounters. For decolonial scholars, intercultural philosophies provide an opportunity to sharpen positive proposals of equitable encounters beyond the critique of current forms of colonial domination. Rather than developing a general compromise, we propose a contextualist strategy, highlighting that different situations require different responses that can be strongly confrontational or dialogical in character. Decolonial and intercultural motifs serve different functions in the articulation of a critical global philosophy and can sharpen each other without integrating into a middle ground that is “a little bit intercultural” and “a little bit decolonial”. (shrink)

Kwasi Wiredu defines conceptual decolonisation as an activity in which Africans divest themselves of undue colonial influences, but his descriptions of this process are either unrelated to divesting or work quite generally, and not in favour of an African point of view. Wiredu's approach to decolonisation appears to be largely indistinguishable from the business of philosophy.

This article examines the benefits and challenges of integrating decolonisation into philosophy. Its thesis is that a decolonial approach must address not only what decolonisation entails but also how to implement it methodologically. While the analysis of ethnocentrism in philosophy is crucial, it is insufficient if it remains confined to internal criticism without leading to a methodological introjection of the unfamiliar and the foreign. A solid methodology is essential to prevent superficial approaches to diversity and inclusion that fail to challenge (...) disciplinary practices. This methodology, however, is not an end but a means to encourage ongoing conversations beyond comparative and cross‐cultural philosophy. Thus, this article proposes methodological syncretism as a critical approach that embraces a variety of methodologies. The aim is to mitigate the risk of neutralizing the active force of decolonisation by reducing it to a mere theoretical abstraction, which could ultimately lead to a reproduction of colonial appropriation. (shrink)

Calls for decolonization are on the rise in social and academic life, but ‘decolonization’ can mean various things. This article expounds and critically evaluates the programme of conceptual decolonization, chiefly as promulgated in relation to African philosophy by Kwasi Wiredu. The programme involves both resisting the unreflective acceptance of non-indigenous concepts and constructively utilizing indigenous conceptual resources to address philosophical questions. Examining recent objections from Olúfẹ́mi Táíwò and giving particular attention to Wiredu’s treatment of religious concepts, I concur with Wiredu (...) that conceptual decolonization can encourage conceptual enlargement but argue that care is needed to avoid oversimplifying the non-indigenous concepts that are subjected to scrutiny. (shrink)

In its attempt to deflate of the pretensions of ‘Western knowledge’, the epistemic decolonisation movement carries on the work of Socrates, who sought to persuade those who thought that they were wise but were not, that they were not. Yet in its determination to recover and elevate indigenous systems of thought, decolonisation seems opposed to this very work, which is always corrosive of inherited belief. Decolonisation both expresses and contradicts the spirit of Socratic philosophy.