Teilhard de Chardin and Senghor on the civilization of the universal

II.4.7. Africa and Philosophy

We can build up a body of disciplines in social sciences in Africa by legitimating the return to Egypt. We are then going to see that Egyptian facts enable us to find the common denominator of the small scraps of thought, here and there, a tie between the African cosmogonies in way of fossilization. This is because Egypt played for Africa, the same role that Greco-roman civilization played for the western world, as Diop affirms:

L'Egypte a joué vis-à-vis de l'Afrique Noire le même rôle que la civilisation gréco-latine vis-à-vis de l'Occident. Un spécialiste européen, d'un domaine quelconque des sciences humaines, serait malvenu de vouloir faire oeuvre scientifique s'il se coupait du passé gréco-latin. Dans le même ordre d'idée, les faits culturels africains ne retrouveront leur sens profond et leur cohérence que par référence à l'Egypte.^79(*)

As such, any study about philosophy in Africa could refer back to mother Egypt in order to find its roots, just as any serious study in philosophy in Europe goes back to Greece to find its roots also. It is therefore important for us to give a review of Egyptian philosophical thought since it helps us throw more light on negro-african philosophical thought:

Puisque la pensée philosophique égyptienne jette une lumière nouvelle sur celle de l'Afrique Noire, et même sur celle de la Grèce « berceau » de la philosophie classique, il importe de la résumer d'abord, de manière à mieux faire ressortir, par la suite, les articulations souvent insoupçonnées, autrement dit les emprunts. Cette manière de présenter les faits en respectant la chronologie de leur genèse et leurs liens historiques vrais, est le moyen le plus scientifique de retracer l'évolution de la pensée philosophique et de caractériser sa variante africaine.^80(*)

The history of philosophy will therefore be more truthful if only it begins with Egypt. Referring back to Egypt enables the researcher to retrace the evolution of philosophical thought and to characterize its African version.

As Diop tells us, Egyptian cosmogony attests that the universe has not been created ex nihilo, on a given day and that there has always existed an uncreated matter having no beginning and no end. This is just what the Apeiron of ANAXIMANDER is all about. This primitive matter also contained the law of transformation, the principle of evolution of matter across time, also considered as divinity: kheper. It is the law that will actualise the essences, the beings that are first of all created in potency before being created in act: the theory of reminiscence in Plato and, matter and privation, act and potency in Aristotle.

In fact, we are going to see the contribution of Egyptian thought to the development of philosophy in Greece. When we read Plato in the Timaeus, there are many similarities between Egyptian cosmogony and Platonic cosmogony.

The world according to Plato is made from a perfect model, immutable, in opposition to the perpetual becoming of matter: coming to birth and passing away, which is the materialisation of imperfection itself. The Demiurge, the worker who creates sensible beings, has his eyes always fixed on its model which is the absolute idea, perfect, the eternal essence, and which it copies.

Let us consider one text of the Timaeus of Plato, which helps us see the influence from Egypt:

[...] Or, on peut, à mon sens, faire en premier lieu, les divisions que voici. Quel est l'être éternel et qui ne naît point et quel est celui qui naît toujours et n'existe jamais ? Le premier est appréhendé par l'intellection et par le raisonnement, car il est constamment identique. Quant au second il est l'objet de l'opinion jointe à la sensation irraisonnée, car il naît et meurt, mais n'existe jamais réellement.^81(*)

According to Diop, we can recognize in this passage of Plato in the Timaeus, the archetypes of all future beings in the Egyptian noun, already created in potency while waiting to be actualised thanks to the work of the kheper, god of becoming, or law of perpetual transformation in matter. Egyptian cosmology is essentially a philosophy of the becoming, more than two thousands years before HERACLITUS and all the other Presocratics.

Plato's vision of the world was largely influenced by Egyptian cosmogony. It is full of optimism, in opposition to the European pessimism. This is what Cheikh Anta Diop maintains when he says:

La cosmogonie platonicienne est imprégnée d'optimisme par opposition au pessimisme indo-européen en général. Il s'agit, de toute évidence, d'un héritage de l'école africaine. On montrait encore au temps de Strabon les logements des anciens « élèves » Platon et Eudoxe, à Héliopolis, en Egypte, où ils passèrent treize ans à étudier les diverses sciences, la philosophie, etc. Chaque initié ou élève grec était tenu d'écrire un mémoire de fin d'étude sur la cosmogonie et les mystères égyptiens, quelle que fût la branche d'étude.^82(*)

From this remark of Diop, we see that Plato and many other Greeks like ARISTOTLE, studied in Egypt and it is in Egypt that they were initiated to philosophy. As such, any Greek thought in antiquity, from the poet Hesiod, at the beginning of the seventh century before Christ, to the Presocratics and Aristotle, bears the marks of Egyptian cosmogony:

Toute la pensée grecque antique, depuis le poète Hésiode au début du VIIè siècle av. J.C. jusqu'à Aristote lui-même, en passant par les présocratiques, porte les marques des cosmogonies égyptiennes [...] Nous retrouvons chez Aristote [...] les concepts de la cosmogonie égyptienne, rajeunis, embellis peut-être, mais toujours reconnaissables : la théorie des contraires de l'école hermopolitaine, la création en puissance et en acte, la forme pure, c'est-à-dire l'essence éternelle, l'archétype, comme réalité dernière et cause finale de l'évolution du monde, tout nous renvoie à l'Egypte.^83(*)

Indeed, the history of philosophy has to be rewritten and DIOP unveils the truth that had been lying hidden by the western world. From his research, it is clear that philosophy is not Greek in its essence as Martin HEIDEGGER could assert or that the Negro has a prelogic mentality, as LEVY-BRUHL and the other representative of European imperialistic and racialist theses such as HEGEL maintained. In ancient philosophy, we can establish a great influence from Egypt. Many concepts used by Plato and Aristotle are referring back to Ancient Egypt.

In the light of the Civilization of the Universal, it is important to rebuild a certain self-esteem in the hearts and minds of Africans, by showing them that they have offered much to other civilizations and that they still have to work hard in order not to play a figurative role in the dialogue of civilizations. We acclaim the work of Cheikh Anta Diop in giving back to Africans a certain pride that could give them the momentum to strive to develop their civilization, referring back to ancient Egypt. It is clear from this section of our work that the contribution of Africa in sciences, in art, in religion and most of all in philosophy cannot be measured.

Léopold Sédar Senghor goes a step further, by showing that African civilization has been assimilated by the western world as from the end of the 19^th century. This is to show the important role that Africa has played so far in the dialogue of civilizations. Senghor avers:

[...] depuis la fin du XIXè siècle et la révolution épistémologique, scientifique, littéraire, artistique qui l'a marquée, l'Europe, l'Euramérique plus précisément, a commencé d'assimiler les civilisations que l'on disait « exotiques ». Et celles-ci d'assimiler, inversement, la civilisation euraméricaine. Et l'on sait, pour m'en tenir aux arts en général, que, sans les vertus de la Négritude, ni la sculpture, ni la peinture, ni la tapisserie, je dis ni la musique ni la danse ne seraient ce qu'elles sont aujourd'hui : les expressions déjà, d'une Civilisation de l'Universel.^84(*)

In fact, the Civilization of the Universal consists in accepting one another in our values. It is a coming together to share what we have as valuable in our cultures. It proves once more that humanity needs each and every one of us. This passage of Senghor shows that the Civilization of the Universal is a process of assimilation of what is valuable in the other culture: Europe assimilating African values in art, music, dance, sculpture, arts in general and Africa on the other side, assimilating the values of European civilization. He then insists on the fact that without the value of the expression of African personality throughout the world, by means of arts, music, dance, sculpture, painting and so on, would not be what they are today: the expression of the Civilization of the Universal.

* ⁷⁹ Cheikh Anta Diop, Nations nègres et Culture, Paris, 1954, P. 169.

* ⁸⁰ Ibid., p. 388.

* ⁸¹ Timaeus 28., in Cheikh Anta Diop, Civilisation ou Barbarie, Paris, 1981, p. 425.

* ⁸² Cheikh Anta Diop, Civilisation ou Barbarie, Paris, 1981, p. 426.

* ⁸³ Ibid., p. 450.

* ⁸⁴ Léopold Sédar Senghor, Liberté III, Négritude et Civilisation de l'Universel, Paris, 1977, p. 44.