ABSTRACT

In the course of time, philosophy is understood as characterized by systematic and critical reflection; an individual enterprise that involves the use of the intellect to assess the realities of the times that often derives from people’s culture. Ethno-philosophy is a strand of the philosophic enterprise with geographical locus in that it has real relation to an ethnic people or tribal communities. Ethno-philosophy looks inward into the culture of the people in its endeavor to formulate themes for philosophical development. Ethnophilosophy is thus characterized by its elemental cultural contents. The question to ask whenever ethno-philosophy emerges in a discourse is if it is valid philosophy without curious and questionable acceptation by scholars. Does ethno-philosophy dwarf the universal character of philosophy? This work delves into the problematic of ethnophilosophy with a view to proffering deep insights and clearing the hurdles on the way of its full appreciation by scholars. The research takes a stand in asserting that ethnophilosophy is indeed valid philosophy. It strives assiduously to amass reasons why this is so. Unfortunately, the denial of validity to ethno-philosophy comes from wrongly formulated premise. The denial stands on the illogical; and, it can only be justice that the illogicality be exposed for what it is. The paper goes on to show that although thematic development in the strand is fundamentally ethnic, the fruits of the discourse have no reason to so remain. Ethno-philosophy can thus only enrich global philosophy from an amalgam of contributions that reflect the different cultural identities or pluralities that give meaning to the existence of diverse peoples from their geo-local world of being.