Episode 154, 'African Philosophy of Religion' with Aribiah David Attoe (Part II - Further Analysis and Discussion)
The Panpsycast Philosophy Podcast
Jack Symes | Andrew Horton, Oliver Marley, and Rose de Castellane
4.8 • 612 Ratings
🗓️ 5 April 2026
⏱️ 29 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The meaning of life is, as Albert Camus put it, the most urgent question in philosophy – the one on which everything else depends. Yet, when Western philosophy looks to answer this question, it paces up and down the same old libraries – the same shelves filled with the same assumptions about what counts as a self, a good life, and what happens after death.
African philosophy of religion has been neglected in this area. Not because it has nothing to say – but because we haven't been listening. Today, we'll be exploring this tradition – that is, African philosophy – on the meaning of life with Dr Aribiah David Attoe, Lecturer in Philosophy at the University of the Witwatersrand in South Africa. Dr Attoe has published several books – including The Question of Life's Meaning: An African Perspective, and African Perspectives to the Question of Life's Meaning – as well as numerous articles and special journal issues on today's topic, bringing these globally neglected traditions into dialogue with mainstream philosophy.
In this episode, we'll explore what it means to live meaningfully with others – not merely alongside them. We'll ask how harmony differs from conformity, and whether communal ideals can protect outsiders. And, most importantly, we'll confront life and death head-on: whether it's possible to find meaning, and – if not – how we should live in a meaningless world.
This episode is produced in partnership with The Global Philosophy of Religion Project at University of Birmingham, funded by the John Templeton Foundation.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Pan, pan, psychist. |
| 0:04.0 | Part two, further analyses and discussion. In our previous installment, we were discussing |
| 0:25.5 | African perspectives on the meaning of life. Go back and listen to it if you haven't done so already. |
| 0:30.9 | Arabia, one of the most popular views on this is a sort of bundle theory where a blend of different |
| 0:37.4 | things are all necessary to a meaningful life. |
| 0:40.5 | And in one of your papers, you cite an author who says things like money and children, |
| 0:45.6 | community, are all ingredients to what it is to have a meaningful life. |
| 0:50.1 | I wonder how seriously we should take this few. |
| 0:52.9 | If none of these things individually give us a full |
| 0:55.3 | account of meaning, then what good is it to just chuck them all together and go, ha ha, |
| 0:59.6 | I've discovered the meaning of life. All right. So I think the philosopher you're speaking of |
| 1:06.0 | is a European philosopher whose name is Ola dele-B Lugan. That's why I didn't say his name. |
| 1:11.6 | Yes. |
| 1:12.6 | So drawing from the Yoruba tradition, and so this is a very traditional African view, |
| 1:19.4 | meaningfulness involves a cluster of things. |
| 1:22.0 | So things like a long and healthy life, things like having children, which is very important within the |
| 1:30.1 | African, traditional African context. Having a peaceful spouse, I mean, wasn't it, was it |
| 1:37.6 | Socrates who said, if you don't have a good spouse, you become a philosopher or something |
| 1:42.3 | like that. All right. So having a |
| 1:44.9 | savage critique on his own way. So having a peaceful spouse and then having victory over |
| 1:52.1 | life's vicissitudes, the sort of things that would make a life meaningful. On their own, |
| 1:59.1 | I think some of these things do not on your own make life meaningful. |
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