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On 11 April 1942, the Beninese philosopher, politician and academic, Paulin Jidenu Hountondji was born. He is considered one of the most important figures in the history of African philosophy.From the 1970s onwards, he taught at the Université Nationale du Bénin in Cotonou, where he was Professor of Philosophy. 

His academic career was interrupted, however, by a period spent in politics. Having been a prominent critic of the military dictatorship that had ruled his country, Hountondji became involved in Benin's return to democracy (in 1992), and served in the government as Minister of Education and Minister for Culture and Communications until his resignation and return to the University in 1994.

Hountondji's philosophical influences include two of his teachers in Paris, Louis Althusser and Jacques Derrida. His reputation rests primarily on his critical work concerning the nature of African philosophy. His main target was the ethnophilosophy of writers such as Placide Tempels and Alexis Kagame. He argued that ethnophilosophy was in large part a response to Western views of African thought; this polemical role works against its philosophical validity.

His approach widened somewhat in later work; he still rejected ethnophilosophy as a genuine philosophical discipline, but he had moved towards more of a synthesis of traditional African thought and rigorous philosophical method. He defended that thesis until his last days.

Hountondji died in Cotonou on 2 February 2024, at the age of 81.

(source: Wikipedia, accessed on 11 april 2025)

Selected publications

Adebajo, Adekeye (eds.), The Pan-African pantheon: prophets, poets, and philosophers (Manchester, 2021).

Diagne, Mamoussé, De la philosophie et des philosophes en Afrique noire (Paris, 2006).

Hountondji, Paulin J, Henri Evans en Jonathan Rée, African philosophy: myth and reality (Bloomington, 1996).

Hountondji, Paulin J, en Centre africain des hautes études, La production du savoir dans l’Afrique d’aujourd’hui: l’ancien et le nouveau (Paris, 2009).

Hountondji, Paulin J, Les savoirs endogènes : pistes pour une recherche (Paris, 1994).

Hountondji, Paulin J, Endogenous knowledge: research trails (Dakar, 1997).

Hountondji, Paulin J, O antigo e o moderno: a produc̨ão do saber na  África contemporânea (Mangualde, 2012).

Hountondji, Paulin J, en John Conteh-Morgan, The struggle for meaning : reflections on philosophy, culture, and democracy in Africa (Athens, OH, 2002).

Ndoye, Bado, Paulin Hountondji: leçons de philosophie africaine (Paris, 2022).

Techou, Roland, en Bernardin Boko, Penser l’Afrique d’aujourd’hui; avec Paulin Hountondji (Paris, 2021).