Intellectual Imagination: Knowledge and Aesthetics in North Atlantic and African Philosophy

Intellectual Imagination: Knowledge and Aesthetics in North Atlantic and African Philosophy

The Intellectual Imagination unfolds a sweeping vision of the form, meaning, and value of intellectual practice. The book breaks new ground in offering a comprehensive vision of the intellectual vocation. Omedi Ochieng argues that robust and rigorous thought about the form and contours of intellectual practices is best envisioned in light of a comprehensive critical contextual ontology―that is, a systematic account of the context, forms, and dimensions in and through which knowledge and aesthetic practices are created, embodied, translated, and learned. Such an ontology not only accounts for the embeddedness of intellectual practices in the deep structures of politics, economics, and culture, but also in turn demonstrates the constitutive power of critical inquiry. It is against this background that Ochieng unfolds a multidimensional and capacious theory of knowledge and aesthetics. In a critique of the oppositional binaries that now reign in the modern and postmodern academy―binaries that pit fact versus value, science versus the humanities, knowledge versus aesthetics―Ochieng argues for the inextricable intertwinement of reason, interpretation, and the imagination. The book offers a close and deep reading of North Atlantic and African philosophers, thereby illuminating the resonances and contrasts between diverse intellectual traditions. The upshot is an incisively rich, layered, and textured reading of the archetypal intellectual styles and aesthetic forms that have fired the imagination of intellectuals across the globe. Ochieng’s book is a radical summons to a practice and an imagination of the intellectual life as the realization of good societies and good lives. "By creating and categorizing an aesthetic practice for writers like Achebe, Soyinka, and Coetzee, Omedi Ochieng is inventing a new way to think about the works of these celebrated authors from the African continent. Much has been written about these thinkers and their aesthetic styles, but Ochieng's unique approach takes them out of dominant categorizing as being in dialectic engagement with the West and rather generates new ways to think about their aesthetic practices. This book is geared to advanced undergraduate or graduate students of philosophy who want to expand their understanding of how African thought fits within Western paradigms." ―Cheryl Sterling, The City College of New York "Intellectuals study a range of objects, organisms, and phenomena. However, they hardly study their own practice of intellection. In this book, Omedi Ochieng offers an enthralling dissection of the intellectual imagination. He invites us to take the turn of radical practice of the intellectual life. The book is a journey into the future of global philosophy. Playing the role of an excellent tour guide, Ochieng makes the journey easy as he provides the conceptual tools to navigate difficult terrains. Anyone interested in understanding the intellectual life should read this book." ―Uchenna Okeja, Rhodes University "There is something Nietzschean in the theses at the core of Omedi Ochieng’s The Intellectual Imagination ―that intellectual practice is art, and art is intellectual practice and knowledge. Did I say that those theses are teachings from the author of The Gay Science ? The Intellectual Imagination is the brilliant demonstration that they are teachings from African philosophy." ―Souleymane Bachir Diagne, Columbia University " The Intellectual Imagination is a rich and complex work, filled throughout with pithy and rhetorically charged interventions. There are moments of admirable concision and insight, particularly when it comes to his engagements with various interlocutors." ― Reviews in Religion & Theology Omedi Ochieng is assistant professor of communication at Denison University. He is the author of a number of books and articles, including Groundwork for the Practice of the Good Life: Politics and Ethics at the Intersection of North Atlantic and African Philosophy . African communal artwork was also resonant with moral values. For the Yoruba, artwork ought to exhibit character ( iwa ). Salient among prized virtues of character was “coolness,” defined and practiced as seriousness, grace under fire, practical wisdom, magnanimity in a moment of triumph, finely calibrated and modulated habitus . The formal articulation of coolness occurred in sculptures, carvings and paintings that emphasized symmetry, balance, and a regal posture. Yoruba artists also often represented coolness in the form of carvings and sculptures that presented the face with a serious mien, with sealed lips and composed features. The colors blue, indigo, and green were also seen as the salient formal features of coolness. Other manifestations of character in Yoruba art emphasized purity (which is represented by the color white). African communal artwork also often – though not always – served a distinct role in social practice. African art historians have pointed