Sophie Oluwole and Her Work

The Nigeria philosopher Sophie Bosede Oluwole died on 23 December 2018 at age 83. She was the first female to hold a doctorate degree in philosophy in Nigeria.

She rejected the sensibilities of a British education system in which she was educated, and lifted up traditional Yoruba metaphysics, seeking to empower fellow Africans.

Oluwole urged western Africa to reclaim its philosophical heritage, contending that the body of knowledge she found in the Yoruba tradition was as rich and complex as any found in the west.

“Reality contains matter and non-matter,” Oluwole told the Dutch filmmaker Juul van der Laan last year, highlighting a faultline. “In the west, the two cannot go together, they are in opposition. The African says yes, it has two features, but they cannot be separated. There is nothing that is absolutely material. There is nothing that is absolutely non-material. And in all phenomenons in the world, the two are there together.”

If Socrates could be considered the father of western philosophy, having left behind no written work of his own, then why shouldn’t Orunmila, who is believed to have predated Socrates, be considered the father of African philosophy? Oluwole urged western Africa to reclaim its philosophical heritage, contending that the body of knowledge she found in the Yoruba tradition was as rich and complex as any found in the west.

In 2015 she published Socrates and Orunmila: The Two Patrons of Classical Philosophy, directly comparing the two philosophers who had shaped her life’s work.

Related reading: Oluwole Put Yoruba Philosophy on the Map; African Philosophy in the 21st Century;