© 2000 Richard Lord |
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Presbey talks with colleagues at the University of Nairobi.
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Seven years ago, Gail Presbey began research for a book about
African philosophy based on those philosophies orally transmitted
by village elders in rural Kenya. In 1998, the assistant professor
of philosophy at Marist college received a Fulbright grant to
complete her research on the subject and to lecture at the University
of Nairobi.
Having completed an enormously successful first year in Africa,
Presbey was granted an extension that allowed her to stay an additional
10 months. A specialist in cross-cultural philosophy, Presbey
has taken a particular interest in the philosophy of Africa because,
she explains, "It is important in this day and age, when
Africans suffer from so many stereotypes, that it be shown that
there are serious philosophical thinkers in Africa."
Her project builds upon the work of highly respected Kenyan scholar
Odera Oruka, who began a similar project in 1975 and published
Sage Philosophy: Indigenous Thinkers and the Modern Debate on
African Philosophy in 1991, the book Presbey will use as a model
for her own publication. Working together before his death in
1995, Okura and Presbey interviewed many Kenyan sages, defined
as Kenya's elderly independent thinkers who possess a high degree
of insight and intelligence. Presbey's book, Searching for Sagacity:
Odera Oruka's Sage Philosophy Project, will bring the wisdom of
Kenyan sage philosophers to a wider audience as well as educate
scholars in the field of philosophy about the groundbreaking work
of Odera Oruka and other researchers at the University of Nairobi.
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