Since the publication of his landmark book, African Philosophy: Myth and Reality (1976), Paulin Jidenu Hountondji (1942-2024) has become one of the most important names in modern African philosophy. This study explores his conceptual development by investigating his various philosophical concepts, formulations, writings and activities as a theorist engaged in establishing crucial institutional practices in Africa and beyond.
In addition, this project examines most of the primary concepts and formulations within Hountondji’s thought beginning with his famous critique of ethnophilosophy, unanimism, extraversion, scientific dependency and a late career concept which he termed endogenous knowledge. Ultimately, this study seeks to unravel and isolate the turns within his thought and career that make it possible to regard him as one of Africa’s modern philosophy pioneers.