Women as Sages: Exploring the nature and value of Feminine Wisdom

Abstract

Abstract

Ever since the late African philosopher, Odera Oruka, put forward his conception of Philosophic Sagacity as an authentic African philosophy, widespread discussion on this position has made Philosophic Sagacity so authoritative that it is proposed as one of the most reliable sources of African knowledges (Mosima, 2016). Perhaps owing to the influence of Paul Radin (1927) and his gender-restrictive reference to “man” in the discovery of African knowledges, Oruka and his followers seemed also to have excluded women from the category of sages. Thus, despite the possible existence of many female powerhouses of wisdom in Africa, and despite the global push for equal opportunities and recognition for women, the Sage Philosophy project is still predominantly chauvinistic. This research project titled “Women as Sages: Exploring the nature and value of Feminine Wisdom” is an agenda-setting work that seeks to investigate the possibility of woman sages, the nature and content of the form of knowledge they produce, and the value of such knowledges to the contemporary African and others.