African traditional religions

Religion has been at the centre of recent philosophical debate in Africa for two major reasons. The first is that the answers to many central canonical philosophical questions in precolonial African societies take a religious form. As a result any attempt to construct an African philosophy begs attention to the epistemological and ontological standing of claims of this general sort. The second reason religion has been central to African philosophy is that one of the major issues in modern African philosophy is whether distinctively African modes of thought exist. Within this debate influential positions have been argued by reflecting on the character of traditional religious thought and practice and contrasting it with modes of thought purportedly associated with Western science.