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Yacob and Amo: African precursors to Enlightenment thinkers

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Re: Yacob and Amo: African precursors to Enlightenment thinkers

#31

Post by brighteyes »

Yacob was a remarkable thinker, to be sure, but there is no reason to connect him to the Enlightenment: He didn't influence it, nor was he influenced by it, as far as we can tell.

The only reason the article seems to connect Yacob to the Enlightenment is because he wrote around the time of Descartes, and on similar themes. But that's not enough of a connection - without a causal interaction between him and the Enlightenment, the timing is just a coincidence.

Other rational and secular philosophers have lived in various times and places (China, ancient Greece, India, etc.). Yacob deserves a place of honor among them, but none of them are part of the Enlightenment.

It's odd how the article tries to connect Yacob to the Enlightenment - it doesn't make logical sense, and so seems more out of the author's desire to see that connection.

Re: Yacob and Amo: African precursors to Enlightenment thinkers

#32

Post by alphonsegaston »

j9461701 wrote: post #11

>In short: many of the highest ideals of the later European Enlightenment had been conceived and summarised by one man, working in an Ethiopian cave from 1630 to 1632. All of the highest ideals of the European enlightenment had been conceived by dozens of people all throughout human history. I fail to see what makes Yacob special in this regard. For example: >He believed in the supremacy of reason So did Aristotle. S…

>At the risk of being reductionist, this article strikes me as being in a similar vein to "Ancient Egyptians were black!". That is, an attempt to elevate a modern minority group to higher prestige by attributing to them historical achievements they didn't really have any part in.

It would sound less reductionist if you had applied the same characterization to the nebulous, modern fiction of “whiteness” and its invented appeals to Greco-Roman traditions.

Re: Yacob and Amo: African precursors to Enlightenment thinkers

#33

Post by stareatgoats »

UweSchmidt wrote: post #30
stareatgoats wrote: post #27

Someone who does any study of the history of ideas will run into the still ubiquitous and somewhat self-aggrandizing paradigm in the discipline. In coarse outline: that rational thinking is something which started with the Greeks and was carried like a torch through various high-watermarks in western history, and in essence is one of the things that distinguishes (and elevates) the west from the rest of the world. Gr…

Of course our own history is more important to us than others' (which are extensively studied in the west as well), and cherry picking and narrative writing is also an ethical statement: We point to the values of ancient Greek democracy as our own democracy is in danger. We refer to the thinkers in our past as scientific thinking is questioned today. Especially when dealing with Greeks (and Romans), it is amazing how…

Agree it is only natural to be more preoccupied with a perceived 'own' history. But (quite commonly I would argue) we tend to use widespread but shallow perceptions of such a history to push an agenda, which may or may not be justified. For example, did you know that our current concept of democracy was seen as abhorrent by the ancient Athenians? They preferred 'sortition', or representation by lottery in order to avoid the risk of corruption of elected officials [1].

Can't say that they didn't have a point, and that their warnings have all but disappeared in intellectual history also points to (if not proves) some disengagement from actual facts in favor of self-aggrandizement in the discipline that I hinted at in the parent comment.

I may be a bit unfair to a whole discipline, but this was one of main takeaways from several years in university level intellectual history. I came in hoping it would be a detached and inquisitive investigation into the history of human thought in general. I was disappointed, but I learned a lot, still.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KS9EMvbBq_U (3 minute agitation for sortition, but mentions the ancient Greeks at least)

Re: Yacob and Amo: African precursors to Enlightenment thinkers

#34

Post by mc32 »

stareatgoats wrote: post #27

Someone who does any study of the history of ideas will run into the still ubiquitous and somewhat self-aggrandizing paradigm in the discipline. In coarse outline: that rational thinking is something which started with the Greeks and was carried like a torch through various high-watermarks in western history, and in essence is one of the things that distinguishes (and elevates) the west from the rest of the world. Gr…

In that vein, one could examine the extra traditional mentions in other philosophical traditions. That is what you said will be evident in Chinese, Persian, Indian, etc., philosophical traditions.

Each main tradition will focus on its own mainline and make some minor reference to others.

Even Korea and Japan while objectively borrowing from China at times will assert their traditions as being quite native.

Marginalized people under a dominant tradition may use a foreign tradition to assert themselves in a society which may otherwise ignore them. For example, you may find Dalits of India use Western philosophical language to overcome indigenous philosophical oppression.

Re: Yacob and Amo: African precursors to Enlightenment thinkers

#35

Post by mcguire »

anigbrowl wrote: post #26
nickysielicki wrote: post #5

We don't study philosophy simply based on who is first, we study texts because they are thorough and influential on future philosophical and political development. We know this because future scholars directly cite them. Before all the aforementioned authors, it's all but certain that many of these thoughts were had by unknown people without the ability to archive them in depth. The Bible alone is evidence of this; f…

Presumably as this philosopher becomes better known and some readers find his arguments more coherent or inspiring than those of his peers, he will become more widely cited in future. Your argument seems to rest on intellectual popularity as the metric of success, as if the work of all philosophers had been equally accessible to all students of the discipline.

"Your argument seems to rest on intellectual popularity as the metric of success,..."

And further, intellectual popularity among a philosophers contemporaries and immediate successors. That makes it rather difficult to introduce a new thinker.

Re: Yacob and Amo: African precursors to Enlightenment thinkers

#37

Post by wallace_f »

eveningcoffee wrote: post #25

It is interesting that similar ideas tend to pop up around the same time. Based on this, Yacob was more secular, rational and humane than European thinkers at the same time and would feel himself most likely comfortably in the modern world. I think it is always important to know if something was worked on independently in multiple places. I believe that this demonstrates that this something was bound to happen. I wou…

>It is interesting that similar ideas tend to pop up around the same time.

I've heard 'enlightenment ideas' pop up in music and conversation going back to my teens. I would personally bet that similar ideas (such as 'all men are created equal,' as is highlighted in the article) had been proposed countless times in the minds of people long before any enlightenment, or even Christian, thinker.

The problem is the willingness of people to tolerate such ideas. The fact that even though in 2018, with the benefit of hindsight, we can see great civilization and prosperity has been made possible by these ideas, people don't always want to believe them--and in America one does not need to look for very long at our legal system, government & politics, and social behaviors to see this.

Maybe we need another enlightenment, and one more inclusive of the liberties and freedoms of all people.

Re: Yacob and Amo: African precursors to Enlightenment thinkers

#38

Post by empath75 »

stareatgoats wrote: post #27

Someone who does any study of the history of ideas will run into the still ubiquitous and somewhat self-aggrandizing paradigm in the discipline. In coarse outline: that rational thinking is something which started with the Greeks and was carried like a torch through various high-watermarks in western history, and in essence is one of the things that distinguishes (and elevates) the west from the rest of the world. Gr…

The Greeks benefited by creating systems of thought that were propagated by academies and books, and were supported and protected by a vast, powerful empire for over a thousand years.

They happened to have laid the foundation for university education in the west, where the industrial revolution took off first.

It doesn’t take much to imagine a world where the industrial revolution happened in China first and we’d all be talking about how everyone considers confuscious the only important philosopher while overlooking Plato and Aristotle.

Hell in a hundred years that could still happen.

Re: Yacob and Amo: African precursors to Enlightenment thinkers

#39

Post by tree_of_item »

j9461701 wrote: post #11

>In short: many of the highest ideals of the later European Enlightenment had been conceived and summarised by one man, working in an Ethiopian cave from 1630 to 1632. All of the highest ideals of the European enlightenment had been conceived by dozens of people all throughout human history. I fail to see what makes Yacob special in this regard. For example: >He believed in the supremacy of reason So did Aristotle. S…

What actually happens are attempts to diminish a minority group by taking away or ignoring their historical achievements. You've really got this backwards.

Here is a very long Reddit thread in the same vein: https://np.reddit.com/r/badhistory/comments/7o6yau/in_which_...

Re: Yacob and Amo: African precursors to Enlightenment thinkers

#40

Post by j9461701 »

tree_of_item wrote: post #39
j9461701 wrote: post #11

>In short: many of the highest ideals of the later European Enlightenment had been conceived and summarised by one man, working in an Ethiopian cave from 1630 to 1632. All of the highest ideals of the European enlightenment had been conceived by dozens of people all throughout human history. I fail to see what makes Yacob special in this regard. For example: >He believed in the supremacy of reason So did Aristotle. S…

What actually happens are attempts to diminish a minority group by taking away or ignoring their historical achievements. You've really got this backwards. Here is a very long Reddit thread in the same vein: https://np.reddit.com/r/badhistory/comments/7o6yau/in_which_...

If we're going to cite reddit threads, here is the /r/philosophy take on this very article:

https://www.reddit.com/r/philosophy/comments/7jl826/the_afri...

Basically exactly what I thought, it's claptrap using a lot of bad philosophy and bad history to push an afro-centrist narrative for the Enlightenment.

If the shoe was on the other foot, and this was a case of an African invention being attributed elsewhere, I would call that out too. I have no stomach for people who put politics above the truth.

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