The struggle for meaning: reflections on philosophy, culture, and democracy in Africa

Intro -- Foreword -- Preface -- Acknowledgments -- Translator's Acknowledgments -- Part I: Discovering Husserl -- 1 Landmarks -- 1. From Porto-Novo to Rue d'Ulm -- 2. Rationality as a Problem -- 2 The Idea of Science -- 1. An African Concern -- 2. The Scientific Demand -- 3. Truth and the Good -- 4. The Interconnection of Truths -- 5. The Language of Things -- 6. The Impossible Closure -- Part II: Critique of Ethnophilosophy -- 3 Anger -- 1. From Husserl to Tempels -- 2. An Exceptional Crucible: Présence Africaine -- 3. The Copenhagen Presentation -- 4. A "Set of Texts" -- 5. Developments -- 4 The Issues at Stake -- 1. Political Anchoring -- 2. Theoretical Stakes -- 3. Some Readings -- Part III: Positions -- 5 A Polluted Debate -- 1. The Elegance of the Elders -- 2. Muddying the Issues -- 3. The Nationalist Reaction -- 4. Marxists and Anti-Marxists -- 5. Initial Responses -- 6 Rootedness and Freedom -- 1. The Time for Rereadings -- 2. Linguistic Relativity and Philosophy -- 3. The Particular and the Universal -- 4. The Field of the Thinkable -- 7 Reappropriation -- 2. A Rampant Pragmatism -- 3. Variation on "Distance" -- 4. The Impossible De-linking -- 5. The Appropriation of Knowledge -- 6. Reappropriation -- Afterword -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index.