An African Epistemological Approach to Epistemic Certitude and Scepticism

Abstract

The certainty of our epistemic claims, which logically implies the defeat of scepticism has for long been an issue in epistemology. To be certain about an epistemic claim is to assert that such epistemic claim is either immune to scepticism or is more warranted than any sceptical consideration; this in itself is largely dependent on one’s understanding of ‘certainty’ as a concept. For some scholars, certainty would mean ‘immutability’ while for others it means that which is more warranted than other possible claims or propositions. It would mean therefore, that for one to establish the certitude of a claim one would have to first of all establish an agreeable meaning of ‘certainty’ between the sceptic and non-sceptic. Otherwise, there will always be a polarisation on opposite directions between the sceptic and non-sceptic; as it is the case through the history of Western epistemology. The implication of this is that we may never arrive at that which is certain and that which is not certain, therefore, we may never be able to make a claim to knowledge as that which we are certain about. This situation has remained albatross to Western epistemology, thus, this paper seeks to examine how African epistemology deals with the issues of doubt (scepticism) and certainty. It researches into the notion of African epistemology as that which is strongly based on the African ontological conception of reality and examines how African epistemology justifies epistemic claims.