Africa’s diverse philosophical traditions unfold striking accounts of ‘the good life’.

“Be not haughty with what you have learned and now know, hold forth with the unknowing as well as the sagacious,” reads the first thesis of Ptahhotep  –  an ancient Egyptian official who lived c. 2400 BCE, who distilled a vision of how one ought to live in thirty-seven theses. “None knows all. Excellent discourse is better than the most precious stones and is found in the most unlikely of places,” he went on.

In West Africa, Orunmila – a sage born c. 500 BCE and considered to be the most important figure in the Ifa philosophical tradition – taught that Iwa (living a virtuous life) is the most important ideal worth living for.  “What matters most is good character,” rings one characteristic teaching of Orunmila. “You may be wealthy, have many children and build several houses; all come to naught if you lack good character. A life without moral rectitude is nothing but vanity.” 

In the same vein, the vast corpus of ancient Ethiopian wisdom literature has concerned itself with the ‘art of living.’ Zara Yacob’s Hatata, arguably the most celebrated treatise in the Ethiopian philosophical tradition, deftly meshes the autobiographical with stringently rigorous arguments about the nature of rationality, faith, and ethics. “Why is it that all men do not adhere to truth, instead believing in falsehood?” Yacob asks. He then goes on to enumerate the reasons, pointing out that people believe their holy scriptures without questioning them, critiquing their tendency to follow ‘tradition’ slavishly, and arguing that religious beliefs are a means through which rulers manipulate and control their subject populations.