Bert hamminga Questions and Exercises

Control questions:

1. Knowledge and togetherness are positive values both in the west and in Africa. But their is a different relation between them.What is this difference?
2. In the text Africans are said to label Western science and philosophy primarily as "critical".  What, in the text, Africans are said to mean by that?
3. What are, from the standpoint of traditional African culture, the drawbacks of writing and calculating?
4. What is unlike Western habits in the way people in African culture traditionally deal with new ideas and proposals coming up in their community?
5. How, in the text, an attempt to compare African with Western thought is made by saying that in Africa "a person is a voice in the tribe"? What is compared to what exactly?
6. Why according to the text, Africans tend to consider Westerners to be a "mob"?
7. If Africans say "the authority is right", do they mean they did research and found that the authority is right? If not, what do they mean?
8. African philosophy sees the world in terms of forces and power. The Western idea of the world consisting of "things" does not apply. Imagine a person to whom you have   to make clear what the text above says about this. How would you do it?
9. Why is it that Africans shift as easily between Catholicism, Islam and Protestantism as Europeans to between political parties?
10. How can Africans be serious in believing that whatever happens to you is always done by someone?
11. Explain clearly the idea of language as a method of power transmission.
12. Are secrets accepted in Africa. In what sense they are, in what sense they are not?
13. Is there a difference between the necessity to keep secrets in the West as compared to traditional African culture? What is the consequence for the accumulation of knowledge?
14. The text claims that to the traditional African "the future is unreal". What does that mean and what consequences does that have for anticipation and agreements?
15. From the viewpoint of traditional African culture "Making causal theories is a waste of energy". Why?
16. Explain the principle of minimum investment. Why is this principle thought wise from the viewpoint of traditional African culture?
17. Summarise by heart the list of "knowledge we need" (it is not a matter of stupid memorising, there is a logic in it!)
18. Summarise by heart the reasons why the need for "science"(of Western specification) is not felt (it is not a matter of stupid memorising, there is a logic in it!).
19. Explain the difference between the Western term "individual", and the African term "personal"

Exercise:

Think of a question not posed thus far that can clearly be answered by someone who carefully read this web page.

[planned additions: proverbs; personal stories illustrating the points#]