

























COLLECTIVE EPISTEMOLOGY AND THE 
PRIVILEGE OF THE COMMUNITY IN AFRICAN 

SOCIAL EPISTEMOLOGY

 Francis Ikhianosime

Abstract
This article demonstrates the logic and viability of 
collective subjects in African social epistemology. It 
exposes the epistemology of collective subjects as one of the 
central issues in social epistemology. The question of 
collective subject proves a difculty for traditional 
epistemology because of its individualistic approach. 
Traditional epistemology privileges the individual over a 
group or collective. However, social epistemology which is 
a more uid form of epistemology discusses the uidity of 
subjects beyond individual persons as knowers. The 
complexity of regarding a group or collective as a knower 
involves a lot of implications. This paper critically takes on 
some of the engaging objections against collective subjects.  
This paper exposes philosophical perspectives on the 
community and on this rational ground, takes the 
community, as an example of collective subject to discuss 
the philosophy of collective epistemology both from social 
epistemology in the West and African social epistemology. 
 It holds that the naturalist-structualist view of the 
community which communitarianism is grounded on is 
well-reasoned. It defends the communitarian view of the 
community as a doxastic agent and shows that it does not 
undermine individual freedom or rationality as advanced 
by critics of communitarianism, rather, it enhances it. It 
concludes that the privilege of the community in social 



epistemology and particularly, African social epistemology, 
is grounded on epistemological and ontological 
predisposition, yet, the community can be regarded as an 
epistemic agent, without diminishing the epistemic integrity 
of the individual. It holds that the individual knows through 
the community, which makes the individual's scope to know 
more holistic. This paper adopts expository and analytic 
methods in its approach.

Keywords: African Social  Epistemology, Community, 
Communitarianism, Collective Knowledge, Social Epistemology.

Introduction
One of the essential differences between traditional epistemology 
(TE) and social epistemology (SE) is that the former is individualistic 
in approach, while the latter is social in approach. In traditional 
epistemology, there is the privilege of the ego; the “I” over the other; 
other minds.  On the other hand, social epistemology begins from a 
starting point that there are other minds. It privileges the social 
character in knowledge acquisition. One approach to understanding 
SE holds that it studies the epistemic properties of individuals that 
arise from their relations with others, while a more robust vision that 
many scholars advocate about SE maintains that it is “associated with 
movements in postmodernism, social studies of science, or cultural 
studies that aim to replace traditional epistemology with radically 

1
different questions, premises, and procedures”  Some conservative 
scholars think any conception of traditional epistemologically must 
square with the rst approach in understanding SE. However, recent 
writings and development in the eld of epistemology reveal that the 
conditions of knowledge or knowing are arguably more dependent on 
social conditions and factors than the internal and the individual. This 
latter vision of the social dimension of knowledge is what some 
scholars like Alvin Goldman boldly argue as in fact, real 
epistemology. Knowledge and epistemology at large are believed to 
be more social than individualistic. 
 Helen Longinoin her paper, “What's Social about Social 

2Epistemology”  explains succinctly ve senses in which SE is social. 

16 Ekpoma Review, Volume 9, 2022



In the rst, she says, social would mean the cognitive agent's social 
environment. A second meaning has to do with a group of individuals 
where groups take the mind of an individual or otherwise. The third 
sense of being social is the concern about the possible inltration of 
scientic inquiry by non-cognitive factors, such as when commercial 
or political interests affect how data are collected and interpreted or 

3
enter into theory or model choice.  The fourth sense is social for 
social epistemology is what she describes as “interaction”. By this, 
she means, “the mutual affecting of two or more agents in a way that 

4alters each, consistent with their persistent entities”.  The sense she 
intends to draw here is the notion of joint action. However, for her, the 
term, 'interaction' is stronger than the term joint action.  There is a 
fth sense of social which means “shared”. This holds, for instance, 
that a belief, attitude, or category may be shared among the members 
of a group, in the sense that all members hold that belief or attitude or 

5are assigned to that category.   It is this sociality of sharing, holding 
something like a belief in common, that is the basis for a community 
or communality of knowledge or what is being developed as 
communitarian epistemology. 
 It is this notion of the social that privileges the relevance of 
communities to individuals in epistemology, that this work seeks to 
expose and engage some hermeneutical overtures and 
epistemological objections on the subject matter. This work will 
expose the concept of collective epistemology and philosophical 
perspectives of the term, community.  It will also expose Martin 
Kush's vision of collective epistemology where he exposes his 
communitarian epistemology; a vision of the social epistemology 
which advances the sociality of the notion of the “shared” as a social 
character of epistemology. Although Kush cannot be said to be the 
rst to have developed the idea of communitarian epistemology, his 
thoughts are very symmetrical to those largely espoused in African 
Social Epistemology (ASE). The last section of this work will be 
devoted to a systematic exposition of the subject of the community, 
collective knowledge in African communitarian epistemology which 
is part of what this work understands as African social epistemology. 
This work adopts expository and analytic methods in its approach. 

17Collective Epistemology and The Privilege...



Collective Epistemology and Philosophical Perspectives of the 
Community
The subject matter of collective epistemology is broad and their 
spectrums have been developed along several interesting lines to 
deepen its understanding. This section will devote synoptic attention 
to areas that concern our conversation. It seems more helpful to begin 
the conversation on collective epistemology with what its concerns 
are rather than what is collective epistemology. A common ground 
concern would perhaps be the interrogation: what kinds of entities are 
capable of cognition? The traditional focus in epistemology would 
give ascription to an individual. The individual is the knower. 
Traditional epistemology as stated earlier in the introduction 
privileges the individual. Individualism in Western philosophy, 
arguably, became more prominent with Descartes. The Ego “I” 
became the Archimedean point of philosophizing. So, when one asks 
the question, of who the subject of cognition is, the individual would 
be an impulsive response, at least from the standpoint of traditional 

6
epistemology. Margaret Gilbert  exposes to the contrary that 
everyday life is full of ascriptions of collective cognitive states. We 
say, for instance, the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) 
believes that the government of the day does not care about 
education. Our family knows that the Police were dishonest in their 
report. The Seminary believes in the honesty and sincerity of its 
students. Gilbert opines that such states are collective, yet, scarce 
attention is paid to this. In the examples, above, groups other than 
individuals were ascribed doxastic qualities of “belief”, “thinking”, 
“knowing” etc. This makes us appreciate the initial interrogative: 
who can hold cognitive states? Let us expand the question a little. Can 
groups be believers? Can a group have a mind of its own? The 
responses to these interrogatives are the subject matter of collective 
epistemology. Simply then, collective epistemology is the study of 

7
collective cognitive states.
 Jennifer Lackey in her introduction to the book, Essays in 

8
Collective Epistemology,  exposes that collective epistemology 
involves talking and discussing about collective entities and this is 
the subject of a variety of epistemic evaluations. She holds that for the 
most, we acquire knowledge via collective testimony. For example, 

18 Ekpoma Review, Volume 9, 2022



we either found out from Wikipedia that Abraham Lincoln died on 
April 15, 1865, or found out from the Vatican Archives that the church 

thwaged a crusade against the Turks in the 16  century and so on.  Most 
of our knowledge claims are testimonially-acquired and even so, 
from collective sources. Roughly, collective epistemology, therefore, 
refers to the study of the epistemological properties of groups and the 
signicance of group knowledge production and acquisition. 
 Two key papers which have arguably provoked the origins of 
collective epistemology are Deborah Tollefsen's “Challenging 
Epistemic Individualism” published in 2002 and Margaret Gilbert's 

9
2004 article, “Collective Epistemology”  
 There are complex consequences to the central theses of 
collective epistemology. These largely form the issues, directions, 
and concerns of this eld of study in SE.  One central debate, 
however, which seems to run through collective epistemology is one 
between summativists and non-summativists. Summativism holds 
that group belief is to be understood in terms of the individual beliefs 

10of the members of the group.  The interpretation here is that the belief 
of the group supervenes on the individual group belief. It holds that 
the group's position is only a reection of the collective or the sum 
beliefs of the members of the group. On the other hand, non-
summativism holds that a group belief is not necessarily a reection 
of what the individual members subscribe to. In this, the individual 
members may not necessarily subscribe to the view. For instance, a 
football club would believe they would beat their opponent in a 
forthcoming game. However, the players may not necessarily hold 
this position based on extant realities and their collective preparation. 
Some anti-summativists have talked about “joint-acceptance” rather 
than belief, where a group may jointly accept something, yet, they 
hold a different doxastic attitude towards this. 
 There have been various objections and defenses for both 
positions. The idea of a community as a doxastic agent is often 
canvassed along either of these lines. This is why the notion is 
important for our conversation. While some scholars hold that a 
community's position is a function of a summative vision, others hold 
something contrary. However, for a community to hold a doxastic 
state or attitude, it is an idea within collective epistemology. The latter 

19Collective Epistemology and The Privilege...



part of this work will discuss the notion of community as a collective 
entity in some detail. However, it sufces to look briey at some 
philosophical perspectives on what a community is.
 The work of John Dixon, Rhys Dogan, and Alan Sanderson, 
“Community and Communitar ianism: A Phi losophical 

11
Investigation”  helps with a fair theoretical foundation and a 
philosophical rubric for understanding a community. They offer a 
quadripartite distinction of a community and attempt to show the 
epistemological difculties with each, especially, those who canvass 
communitarianism. Their work is important, to the effect that, it 
offers us a conceptual framework from the social sciences on how to 
investigate the perceptions of community, and collective action and 
show perceptual gaps which are often invisible between 
communitarian aspirations of a community and what community 
reality is.
 Their argument is premised on the claim that we all have 
epistemological and ontological predispositions which also inform 
what we know or is knowable. Epistemological predisposition can 
either be based on naturalist propositions, whereby social knowledge 
must be grounded in material phenomena that either take analytic 
statements or synthetic statements based on deductive logic or 
inductive inferences, respectively, or hermeneutical propositions 
whereby social knowledge rests on interpretations or discourses and 

12
language.  On the other hand, ontological predispositions relate to 
people's positions about the nature of being, what, and does exists. 
 They argue that ontological predisposition is grounded either 
on structuralist propositions, that is, 'that social structures impose 
themselves and exercise power upon agency', or they are based on 
agency propositions, which indicate that 'individuals have some 
control over their actions and can be agents of their action, enabled by 

13
their psychological and social psychological make-up'.  This 
ideological position is what gave rise to their four methodological 
families which represent possible ways of describing and explaining 
the social world. They are (1) the Hermeneutic-structuralist 
perspective, (2)Naturalistic- structuralist perspective (3)Naturalist- 

14agency perspective, and (4) the Hermeneutic-agency perspective.

20 Ekpoma Review, Volume 9, 2022



Naturalistic-structuralism presumes “an objective social 
world, knowable by the application of scientic methods, in which 
social structures exercise power over agency, which makes human 

15
behavior predictable”  In this methodological trapping, the 
community is another hierarchical social order. Hermeneutic-
structuralism on the other hand presumes “a subjective social world, 
knowable only as it is socially constructed, with people's behavior 
being determined, and made predictable, by their collective 

16interpretation of this reality.”  The community in this vision is a 
collective that places high value on the commitment to engage in 
discourse to build shared ideas and values regarding their community 
interests. Dixon, Dogan, and Sanderson argue that communitarians 
fall under this and their representation of this communitarian vision 
or view of society makes the community fraught with a lot of 
epistemological difculties because it involves the denial of 
naturalism; the conception of what makes a community is not 
necessarily grounded on ontology but more hermeneutical, it leads to 
the denial of agency for the community which seems to deny human 
freedom of individuals in the community and so on. This paper holds 
a contrary position that this critique of communitarianism as 
canvassed by Dixon, Dogan, and Sanderson is not farfetched and 
does not represent accurately the communitarian vision. The vision of 
the community which the last part of this work gives credence to, 
exposes to the contrary, that the community is grounded on ontology 
and also is agential in nature. Furthermore, naturalist agency which is 
another methodological family for viewing the social world 
“presumes an objective social world, knowable by the application of 
the scientic method, in which people are agents of their actions with 
their behavior made predictable by their unconstrained self-

17interest”.  This view holds that individuals in the community do not 
necessarily have shared interests, but are self-interested individuals. 
The last methodological family; hermeneutic agency denies the 
objectivity of social reality which is only contestably knowable as 
what people believe it to be, with agency constrained by their 
subjective perceptions of social reality which makes human behavior 

18unpredictable.”  Summarily, therefore, the conception of a 
community means a lot, and its understanding cannot be presumed. It 

21Collective Epistemology and The Privilege...



lends itself to several understandings and each position taken has 
epistemological implications. 
 The concept of community in African epistemology is 
grounded in the understanding of African Communalism. 
Communalism is the viewpoint that underscores the idea of mutual 
dependence and organic relationships between community and 

19individuals, and among individuals.”  Communalism in Africa is 
largely based on the belief that a person's social identity and 
personality is molded by community relationships, however, with 
some degree of development placed on the individual. It understands 
the community and the harmony of both social conditions and the 
environment of the individual. This concept of communalism is used 
coterminous with the concept of communitarianism which shares the 

20
same vision with it , and it is the subject matter of social-political 
philosophy, epistemology, and even metaphysics. However, 
discussing communitarian epistemology, as it were, is part of the 
subset of the overall picture of what can be described as African social 
epistemology.
 African social epistemology applies to all such contentions 
that approach the study of knowledge with a leaning on investigating 
the social dimensions of knowledge, epistemic properties of groups, 
and collective cognitive states in African epistemology. The 
specication of social, to African epistemology is to distinguish it 
from any other epistemological engagements that deal with 
individual knowers or are individualistic in approach in African 
epistemology as similarly found in western traditional epistemology. 
While, it is needless to embark on the debate whether there is such a 
distinct eld as African epistemology from western epistemology, or 
rather, epistemology as a broad term, the appropriation of 
backgrounds like western and African to the broad eld, species the 
approaches adopted in such areas, granted that philosophy takes note 
of context, and this always becomes the most viable lens of seeing the 
world. Therefore, African epistemology in this context 
accommodates properly speaking, epistemologies in Africa that lend 
credence to the African milieu as a shared starting point. African 
social epistemology is simply epistemologies in Africa with the 
specic approach of a social dimension. This is not a clearly 

22 Ekpoma Review, Volume 9, 2022



delineated eld because earlier descriptions of African epistemology 
grounds it on African ontology and African ontology is viewed within 
African culture which is largely social. Hence, it is believed to 
already be social. However, holding this position seems somewhat 
elementary and does not give room for specic issues in social 
epistemology to be discussed as understood from an African context. 
There are dimensions of individualistic epistemology in African 
epistemology, so, to clearly demarcate any such approach which is 
not individualistic but social in orientation and focuses on the same 
concerns can be described as African social epistemology, both for 
ideological clarity and safety and methodological distinction. It is 
rather safe to hold that just as social epistemology is still new, African 
social epistemology is still an evolving eld with growing concerns. 
 To return to the ideological framework of community in 
African social epistemology, the community can be said to belong to 
the methodological prism of hermeneutic-structuralism espoused 
above. However, its interpretation differs from the conception of 
Dixon,  Dogan, and Sanderson. The hermeneutical predisposition 
does not deny it from being grounded in naturalism. The community 
in Africa is both naturalistic, as it can be physically or tangibly seen, 
however, that is only an aspect of the community. There is a non-
visible aspect. It is non-visible, but not invisible. The understanding 
of the community is grounded in African ontology which sees the 
world both from the natural and the metaphysical points of view. 
 Hence, its interpretative dimension does not circumvent or 
undermine its naturalistic foundations. The difference is that the 
physical world is only a partial aspect of the entire 'community world'  
in Africa and the physical rests largely on the foundations of the 
metaphysical.
 Furthermore, the community is further grounded 
instructuralist propositions, that is, 'that social structures impose 
themselves and exercise power upon agency'. The individual largely 
views the world through the community in Africa. To deny such a 
view or methodological outlook is counterproductive, that is because, 
essentially, we live most of our lives in societies and are shaped by her 
values, whether we live in denial of this or not. We may deny 
participation in the community, but we cannot deny its consequences. 

23Collective Epistemology and The Privilege...



We are essentially tied to the community, hence, man is hardly 
dened outside of his community. The community in ASE and 
metaphysics is made up of being; visible and non-visible. We are part 
of the community. To deny being part of the community is to feign a 
sense of social isolation which is conceptually contradictory. Be that 
as it may, this does not undermine individual freedom as purportedly 

21advanced as a critique against this methodological prism.  In fact, 
community in ASE is grounded in ontology, yet interpretative and 
then, it is structuralist to the effect that the community affects the 
individual, yet, the individual is not denied freedom. This will be 
better exposed in the section on collective epistemology and African 
communitarian epistemology.  
 Communitarian epistemology is not exclusive to ASE. 
Scholars like Martin Kush have canvassed a vision of 
communitarianism which is close to the vision systematized in ASE. 
It sufces as a background, to expose briey the thoughts of Martin 
Kush's Communitarian Epistemology.

Martin Kush's Communitarian Epistemology
Martin Kush's Communitarian Epistemology is detailed in his book, 
Knowledge by Agreement: The Programme of Communitarian 

22
Epistemology.  Although he denies his project as a SE, all description 
about it nevertheless shows both in orientation and direction as a 
profound version of SE. Kush's formulation draws upon views from 
political theory. The idea of communitarianism is a political theory 
that privileges the group or community over the individual. It means 
that the individual nds identication, meaning, and direction largely 
from the community. Kush explains that “knowledge and its 
cognates, like 'know' and 'knower', marks a social status and that the 
fundamental or primary possessor of knowledge are groups or people 

23
rather than the individual”.  
 Communitarian epistemology, therefore, explores ways the 
community is a knower or the individual knows only through the 
community. Kush's epistemology is important because he departs 
from a majority version of SE which has some individualism. 
 Kush's version is communitarian which gives primacy to the 
community as the primary knower and individual belief gets 

24 Ekpoma Review, Volume 9, 2022



interpretation and meaning only from the primary epistemic 
community. Judith Simon explains that Kush's perspective is 
dialogically against some theoretical approaches which aim at 
accounting for the social context of knowledge, like Keith Lehrer's 

24consensualism, Donald Davidson's interpretationalism, etc.
 Kush developed his communitarian epistemology by rst 
advancing a communitarian epistemology of testimony. The 
treatment of testimony in traditional analytic epistemology signals 
the rst ickers of SE which has been placed secondary to other 
sources of knowledge like perception. Kush's treatment of testimony 
attempts to redene the primacy of testimony as a major source of 
knowledge and to advance an account of testimony that is 
communitarian. Kush begins by giving a critique of individualistic 
accounts of testimony. 
 He berates the narrowness attributed to testimony in 
traditional analytic epistemology but acknowledges that testimony 
should best be regarded as a generative source of knowledge. The 
important point for this advancement is a critique against the 
parochial understanding of testimony within the connes of 
transmission of existing knowledge and Kush nds this worrisome, 
rather than a generative source of knowledge. Kush outlines and 
defends testimony as a generative source of knowledge with the 

25concept of performative testimony.
 Jennifer Lackey who reviewed this text of Martin Kush, 
explains in some detail, how testimony is generative and almost all 
forms of testimony are performative, in which case is a generative 
source of knowledge. She gives the example that for instance when a 
minister says, 'I hereby declare you husband and wife', the minister's 
testimony is according to Kush, generating the knowledge that the 
bride and groom in question were married for all those present at the 
ceremony. From here Kush argues that in addition to individual 
performatives, there can be communal performatives, such as “we 
hereby declare that it is right to greet people by waving”. Such 
communal performatives are typically made only implicitly, and they 

26
are widely distributed across individual instances of testimony”.  
The communitarian epistemology of Kush is incensed by the works 
of John Hardwig's work on the role of trust in knowledge and Michael 

25Collective Epistemology and The Privilege...



Welbourne's communitarian account of testimony developed in 
“Community of Knowledge, both Kush says are predecessors to his 
work, but his account is to give a more holistic picture to the place of 
testimony as a generative source of knowledge. Although, Kush has 
been criticized for mixing up perceptual knowledge with testimonial 
knowledge. The instances advanced by Kush for testimonial 
knowledge and square them as performative acts are misleading since 
performative speech acts involve words does not mean they are 
testimonial. While this is a criticism leveled against Kush, his account 
of communitarian account of knowledge opens up a wide vista of area 
for SE. In the latter part of his book, he develops how knowledge is a 
social status acquired by being a member of the community and so 
when A holds a belief and for it to be true, it is the same with what B 
holds and which conforms with the community, hence, knowledge by 
agreement. This view of knowledge makes the community a basis for 
justication. Kush holds that his thesis of communitarian 
epistemology is in tandem with our intuition and folk epistemology. 
 Folk epistemology explores how we ascribe knowledge to 
ourselves and others.  Kush's development of his communitarian 
epistemology follows a few steps. First, his development of the 
concept of performative testimony, in the second step he develops the 
notion of communal performativetestimony, in the third that 
knowledge is a social kind and lastly that his development of his 
communitarian theory of testimony consists emphasizing the 
relevance of epistemic communities for the attribution of knowledge. 
Be that as it may, Kush's thoughts are not clear on the epistemic 
signicance of knowledge by agreement.

The Community, Collective Knowledge, and African 
Communitarian Epistemology
Martin Kush's work is an important preface to understanding 
collective knowledge and African Communitarian epistemology. 
 However, there are some peculiar nuances that this section 
will dene and defend. Peter Ikhane and Bert Hamminga's exposition 
on the community as knowing subjects in African epistemology are 
important resources for understanding collective knowledge in 
African social epistemology

26 Ekpoma Review, Volume 9, 2022



The African way of knowing is more collective than individual. It is 
regarded as collective because it is more of a product of a social 
process than an individual epistemic or cognitive process. The 
African way of knowing involves the various means Africans employ 
in acquiring knowledge. There are several social ways without 
discounting the place and role of the individual. African ways of 
knowing include divination and soothsaying.  Both means or ways of 
knowing, owe their relevance to the African worldview of reality 
which has been discussed above as holistic. The physical and the 
spiritual are on a continuum. It is believed that in the hierarchy of 
beings, the spiritual is superior to the physical. The information and 
contents from the spiritual generally are seen as justied. There can 
be a problem in the interpretation or conveyance of the epistemic 
contents from such spiritual consultation as divination and 
soothsaying. While divination involves recourse to the spiritual 
which includes: spirits, ancestors, or some suprasensible African 
force, soothsaying relies on a similar model of consultation to 
uncover hidden truths and mysteries. 
 In African ontology, diviners and soothsayers are epistemic 
bridges. They stand between the living and the living dead. They are 
usually agents of unveiling mysteries of human life. They use 
divinations to unveil commonsense, intuitive knowledge, and deep 
truths about nature and life in general. The scope of their knowledge 
is not limited to what is or what was, but it can cover what is to come. 
This ordinarily would provoke a deep philosophical question, 
whether the African ontological system is deterministic or fatalistic? 
The answer is not farfetched. Just the way reality is beyond the 
physical, so too is reality and time woven within the tripod of past, 
present, and future. African ontology holds that reality is a complex 
whole that cannot be explained in isolation. The African perception of 
reality which also interprets the African indigenous knowledge 
systems is “expressed in the ontological belief that reality is a 
harmony of beings of forces – permits a cultural thematic approach to 
conceiving African epistemology as elucidating the relatively similar 
epistemological experiences of indigenous Africans by drawing on 
the afnity of the metaphysical conception of reality of the African 

27
past”.  The knowledge system of the African is a complex one that 

27Collective Epistemology and The Privilege...



involves a synergy between the individual and the community and the 
spirit world. 
 In African ontology, there is an almost seamless blend 
between its metaphysics and epistemology. Ikhane puts it that in “the 
African conception, knowledge presupposes being; epistemology 

28
presupposes metaphysics”.  Ikhane further argues that the seeming 
seamless relation between metaphysics and epistemology in African 
epistemology makes us to delineates knowledge as awareness. It 
sufces to cite him for further clarity:
 The nature of knowledge emerging from this relation between 
metaphysics and epistemology is such that knowledge is awareness 
of that which is known and can be known. It is also awareness of that 
which is known and can be known. It is also awareness of that which 
cannot be known and unknowable. What is unknown and 
unknowable indicates the irreducible component of a transcendent 
reality, which is integral to how knowledge was conceived by the 

29indigenous Africans.
 Knowledge as awareness explains that truth or what is only 
discovered by the knower. It exists already. Awareness is when the 
cognitive agent becomes privy to it. This further makes sense 
knowing that the African world view goes beyond the human senses. 
Western traditional epistemology talks of belief as a functional 
element or characteristic of knowledge, but the emphasis is on 
truthfulness and awareness.
The African "knowing subject" is not a person. The "I" does not know, 
but "we" know. This brings out the collective dimension in African 

30
social epistemology . Bert Hamminga explains profusely the 
collectivity of African social epistemology. It sufces to cite him 
elaborately:

As an African, when I was born, some ancestor has 
been "born into" my mother. I will carry his name. I 
am not this ancestor himself. It is not "reincarnation". 

I am the vital power this ancestor is willing to invest 
in me. I am a link in the chain of vital power, the 
genealogical chain of procreation of my community. I 
pray often to my godfather when I need power. Give 

28 Ekpoma Review, Volume 9, 2022



us power, I ask. The living people depend for their 
survival on the power of their ancestors. We are 
nothing but forces endowed with that power. We are a 
force nding food, shelter, and partners to procreate. 

And, the ultimate aim: to have vitally powerful 
children as many as our own vital power allows... Our 
community is a tree. (Dead) ancestors are roots giving 
energy to the adults. Adults from the trunk. They in 
turn supply the branches, leaves, and owers,  our 
children. The tree knows. "We" know. The tree is the 
knowing subject. Westerners can be surprised to see 
us all getting excited (or sad) a the same moment. That 
is because we are one body, a tree. We sing, we dance, 
we weep, we know. We are "together", in such a far-
reaching meaning of that word that westerners will 
have a hard time understanding and believing this 
togetherness. Ironically, the West sent Christians to 
teach us about togetherness. But we, here in Africa, 

31are the experts. Knowledge is a form of togetherness.  

The point Hamminga tries to establish is that African ontology is 
essentially collective and the pursuit of knowledge is not isolated 
from this understanding. It often goes on to establish the analogy of a 
tree and how evenly it binds the African people. The African 
community is not individualistic for that in itself is not a strength but a 
weakness.  Hamminga fastens his explanation of the tree to explain 
the collective nature of the African ontology and also of knowledge 
by arguing, "that a tree does not choose an individual existence. No 
part of a body - and that is all you are - can meaningfully survive cut 
off from the rest. And everything you do, including the acquisition of 
knowledge and coming to beliefs, serves the purpose of enhancing 

32the vital energy, the procreation of the tribe".
 From the above explication, the clan or tribe is, therefore, the 
knowing subject. The clan or tribe is therefore a collective epistemic 
agent. Two maxims that further explain, according to the African is 
that all knowledge is power and all power comes from the forces 
preceding us: our ancestors. The clan as a collective epistemic agent 

29Collective Epistemology and The Privilege...



decides and holds norms and beliefs. The individual who does not 
share in the togetherness of the group alienates himself and must take 
responsibility for his departure. Since knowledge is like a tree, the 
branches cannot grow on their own. In the African group, one feels 

33the same, though not about oneself, but about the community.  
 Just like group knowledge is arguably the primary form of 
knowledge in Western traditional epistemology, the African 
community as a collective agent, is the primary knower. The 
individual knows from the group. This does not diminish the 
individual, rather, it gives him meaning and rationality. If the 
individual holds a position not consistent with the group, then, he is 
likely missing out on some essential understanding and meaning. 
 Also, since the individual is grossly nite and limited, he rests 
so much on the community which derives power from the ancestors 
and such power includes knowledge. To Africans, it seems difcult to 
be an individual in the West because in western society they do not see 

34a group in which they can be an individual.
 Collective epistemic subjects or agents in African 
epistemology, therefore, would include the clan, family lines, 
ancestors, etc. These, however, pose some difculty for western 
thinkers. They pose some difculty that not an individual thinks, but 
the group. Nevertheless, this difculty is not far-fetched. In western 
societies, social classes think, and corporate agents, think. If these 
collectivities could have minds of their own, there is no grave 
difculty in seeing how in African ontology or epistemology, the clan 
or family line thinks. 
 Even then, ancestors as collective agents think through the 
elders as they are regarded as the roots of the tree, using the tree 
analogy to describe the epistemological w`eb in African 
epistemology. Nowak Leszek has argued that epistemological 
collectivism is not the peculiarity of African thought. It rst became 
apparent in European thought with Hegel and manifests itself 
wherever the Hegelian inuence is or was discernible, e.g. in 19th-

35century British idealism or Marxism.  Therefore, epistemological 
collectivism is not just a historical fact, but one open to ideological 
dynamism.
 This African epistemological enterprise is what is understood 

30 Ekpoma Review, Volume 9, 2022



as communitarianism. This philosophical concept emphasizes the 
connection between the individual and the community. Its overriding 
philosophy is based upon the belief that a person's social identity and 
personality are largely moulded by community relationships, with a 
smaller degree of development being placed on individuals. 
Although the community might be a family, communitarianism 
usually is understood, in the wider philosophical sense, as a 
collection of interactions, among a community of people in a given 
place or among a community who share an interest or who share a 

3 6history.  Several African scholars have advanced this 
communitarian view of the African, especially in the works of 
Placide Temples in his Bantu Philosophy, John Mbiti in his African 
Religions and Philosophy, S. Samkange and T. M Samkange in their, 
Hunhism or Ubuntuism: A Zimbabwean Indigenous Political 
Philosophy, I. A. Menkit in his article, "Person and Community in 
African Traditional Thought", Kwame Gyekye in his African 
Cultural values: An Introduction, etc. 
 The idea of communitarianism does not exclude epistemic 
responsibility which is supposedly the bane for disdaining African 
epistemological collectivism. The question is how does a group take 
responsibility for actions since beliefs cannot be ascribed to an 
individual? This view of epistemic responsibility has been defended 
vigorously by some scholars like Munamato Chemhuru in his article, 
"An African Communitarian View of Epistemic Responsibility".  
 He argues "that while one may nd almost a uniform 
framework for the determination of epistemic responsibility in 
different philosophical traditions based on the rational scheme, in the 
dominant African communitarian tradition, there is more to 
responsibility than just individualistic traits like rationality. Thus, 

37
responsibility is seen from the communitarian perspective”.  The 
question of epistemic responsibility ought to be part of the mission of 
addressing epistemological theorizing.
 There is generally a universalist approach to viewing 
epistemic and moral responsibility which poses difculty to a 
collective and communalistic view of knowledge or belief. This 
universalist view of responsibility is based on a reason-centered view 
of responsibility and comes with an epistemological assumption that 

31Collective Epistemology and The Privilege...



only humans are capable of reason alone. This rational scheme in 
Western philosophical thinking is inuenced by the Platonic, 
Aristotelian and Cartesian view of responsibility which holds that 
only the individual person is a moral agent or capable of reason res 
cogitans (a thinking being). This individualistic philosophical 
tradition which was consummated in Cartesian philosophy shaped 
almost the whole of Western philosophy to limit thinking, actions, 
and responsibility to the individual. Munamato calls it a 'person-

38centric view'.  To think of philosophy and moral action only from a 
person-centric view alone is very parochial. The African view of the 
community or communitarian perspective opens up philosophy and 
what agential evaluation can be. In African philosophy at large, man 
is not dened by his individual features alone. In fact, the dominant 
view of responsibility is grounded in communitarianism. The African 
man is not atomic, instead, he is grounded in the community and this 
includes how he knows and also the consequences of his action.
 Responsibility, therefore, in African communitarian 
epistemology is collectivistic. Since the individual forms an 
intertwine within the community, his actions which are grounded in 
such a collectivist outlook can also be collective. For instance, a 
man's action is capable of bringing some ominous effects on a 
community or his family. This is why communitarian ethics is 
emphasized in Africa and why some people whose consistent bad and 
ill actions have brought a bad omen to the community can be 
ostracized. Ostracism from the community in this sense, is a form of 
death, because, without the community, the individual lacks 
foundation. There are certain knowledge or actions which are based 
on the individual, he bears the responsibility for those and there are 
those that are due from the community, and the community takes 
responsibility. 
 Munamato cites, for instance, holding on to knowledge of 
various taboos that are aimed at safeguarding communalistic values, 
individuals are not held responsible for such, but the community 

39bears epistemic responsibility.  Such communitarian views of 
epistemic collectivity are far grounded in such philosophies 
asUbuntu and Simunye. 

32 Ekpoma Review, Volume 9, 2022



Ubuntu is a version and vision of African communitarian discourse, a 
Bantu word that translates as “I am because we are”. In a deeper 
philosophical sense, it holds a universal bond of sharing that connects 
all humanity. Simunye, on the other hand, is descriptive of Ubuntu,  
which literally means “we are one”. It further spirals the 
communitarian vision from the point of collectivity. Ubuntu ontology 
focuses essentially on the dialogical relationship between the person 
and the community. A person is not understood from the 
Enlightenment codication whose essential identication mark is 
rationality. In Ubuntu, a person is dened by his relationship with the 
community. Michael Eze explains that “a person's humanity is 
dependent on the appreciation, preservation, and afrmation of other 
person's humanity. To deny another's humanity is to depreciate my 

40
own humanity” . Personhood involves a social interaction in Ubuntu 
ontology and so too is knowledge which is largely dependent on the 
community. J. S. Mbiti captures this ontology succinctly:

In traditional life, the individual does not and cannot 
exist alone except corporately. He owes this existence 
to other people, including those of past generations 
and his contemporaries. He is simply part of the 
whole. The community must therefore make, create, 
or produce the individual; for the individual depends 
on the corporate group…. Whatever happens to the 
individual happens to the whole group, and whatever 
happens to the whole group happens to the individual. 
The individual can only say, “I am because we are, 

41and since we are therefore I am”.  

This Ubuntu intercourse between the person and community largely 
explains African communitarianism. Although this does not mean 
that the human person loses his individuality, especially with 
reference to his cognitive formation, he is largely tied to his 
community in many varied and foundational ways. What this 
essentially describes is the ontological primacy of community to the 
individual. This notion of the primacy or privilege of the community 
over the individual person has been questioned by some scholars like 
Michael Eze, who explains that a community is formed by a group of 

33Collective Epistemology and The Privilege...



individuals that live under a shared heritage and history. 
 The identity of the individual and community is given 
essence by this intersubjective formation. Although part of the 
community is formed by individual persons, it does not mean the 
individual persons have superiority over the community. The 
community too is not only constituted by living individual persons, 
but also the living dead. This understanding makes the argument 
stronger why the community is essentially primary over individuals. 
Therefore, the community is a collective subject that is equally a 
doxastic agent in this sense.

Conclusion
The focus of this work has been an effort to expose the subject matter 
of collective epistemology as a broad subject in social epistemology 
and focus on the community as a collective subject. If one has only 
been hitherto been grounded on conceiving only the individual to 
think, know, hold beliefs and so capable of epistemic evaluations, it is 
pretty difcult to appreciate how collectives are subjects of similar 
cognitive states. When we talk of having a mind or holding a thought, 
we gure out some corporeal faculties responsible for this in the 
human body, like the brain, etc. To begin to ascribe such states to non-
humans can be very conicting. 
 However, one thing that the discussion on collective subjects 
bring out and which this work has been able to spell is the uidity in 
our conception of personhood. Just as we can have legal persons who 
are non-humans, so too, we can have epistemic subjects that are not 
human individuals. This work has exposed that the concept of 
community is also not conceived in the only parochial understanding 
found in classical sociology of a community of people. This is just a 
naturalistic view. A community has a hermeneutical understanding 
which is conceived beyond naturalism, yet, grounded in African 
ontology. This is the African community. This work also attempts to 
resolve the epistemological difculties associated with the 
communitarian view of holding the community as a collective 
epistemological subject. The place of the individual in the 
community is also spelt out and the difculty of his freedom is not 
diminished. The possibility of fatalism or having individuals in the 

34 Ekpoma Review, Volume 9, 2022



African community as deterministic subjects are also claried. The 
synopsis of our claim is, in African social epistemology, when we 
ask: who knows, we say, “We know”; “the community knows”. The 
individual knows through the community. 
 The community, therefore, is a non-summative collective 
epistemic agent and this epistemological position serves as one of the 
foundation stones in the sketching of an outline for a robust African 
social epistemology.

1 Alvin Goldman, “Why Social Epistemology is Real Epistemology” in 
Social Epistemology. Ed. Adrain Haddock, Alan Miller, and Duncan 
Pritchard.Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010. 1-28

 2 Helen Longino, “What's Social about Social Epistemology”, Journal of 

Philosophy, 119(4): 2022, 169-195.
3 Longino, “What's Social about Social Epistemology”, 170.
4 Longino, “What's Social about Social Epistemology”, 171.

5 Longino, “What's Social about Social Epistemology”, 172.

6 Margaret Gilbert, “Collective Epistemology”, Episteme, 1 (2), 2004: 95-

107.
 7 Gilbert, “Collective Epistemology”, 96.
8 Jennifer Lackey (Ed), Essays in Collective Epistemology, Oxford: 

Clarendon Press, 2014.
9 Deborah PerronTollefsen, “Review of Essays in Collective 

Epistemology,  Jennifer Lackey (ed)” in retrieved on the November 23, 
2022 from Essays in Collective Epistemology | Reviews | Notre Dame 
Philosophical Reviews | University of Notre Dame (nd.edu).

10 See, Alvin Goldman, “Collective and Institutional Epistemology”, in 
Epistemology: A Contemporary Introduction, ed. A. I Goldman and M. 
McGrath (New York: Oxford University Press, 2015), 224-235. See also, 
Nicholas D. Smith, “The New Collective Social Epistemology and The 
Old Fallacy of Functional Equivalence”, in The International Journal of 
Assessment and Evaluation, volume #, Issue #, 2015.

11 John Dixon, Rhys Dogan and Alan Sanderson, “Community and 
Communitarianism: A Philosophical Investigation” in Community 
Development Journal, 1 (40), January 2005, 4-16.

12 Dixon, Dogan and Sanderson, “Community and Communitarianism” 6.
13 Dixon, Dogan and Sanderson, “Community and Communitarianism” 6-

7.
14 Dixon, Dogan and Sanderson, “Community and Communitarianism” 7-

ENDNOTES

35Collective Epistemology and The Privilege...



11.
15 Dixon, Dogan and Sanderson, “Community and Communitarianism”  8.
16 Dixon, Dogan and Sanderson, “Community and Communitarianism”  8.
17 Dixon, Dogan and Sanderson, “Community and Communitarianism”  8.

18 Dixon, Dogan and Sanderson, “Community and Communitarianism”  8.

19 Ikuenobe, Polycarp. “Oral Tradition, Epistemic Dependence and 

Knowledge in African Cultures.”Synthesis Philosophica.65.1 (2008): 23.
20 Daniel Bell denes communitarianism as “the idea that human identities 

are largely shaped by different kinds of constitutive communities (or 
social relations) and that this conception of human nature should inform 
our moral and political judgments as well as policies and institutions.” 
Daniel Bell, “Communitarianism” in Stanford Encyclopedia of 
Philosophy, revised May 15, 2020, retrieved from https://plato.stanford. 
edu/entries/communitarianism/

21 Dixon, Dogan and Sanderson, argue that communitarianism is a product 
of a social theory which they have identied into Hermeneutic-
structuralist methodology. They have also argued that communitarianism 
is philosophically awed. Some of the interpretive objections raised 
arising from the understanding of hermeneutic-structuralist methodology 
is that it leads to the denial of naturalism and ontology which means the 
denial of agency and so on.  See, Dixon, Dogan and Sanderson 
“Community and Communitarianism” 11-13.

22 Martin Kush. Knowledge by Agreement: The Programme of 
CommunutarianEpistemology.Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002.

23 Kush, Knowledge by Agreement,  1.
24 Judith Simon,  “Knowing Together: A Social Epistemology for Socio-

Technical Epistemic Systems.”, Doctoral Dissertation, Universitat Wien, 
April 2010. Web. Nov. 20, 2019. <https://www.researchgate.net 
/publication/233884966_Knowing_Together_A_Social_Epistemology_
for_Socio-Technical _Epistemic_Systems>. 160

25 Kush, Knowledge by Agreement,  67.

26 Lackey, Jennifer. “Review of Knowledge by Agreement: The Programme 

of Communitarian Epistemology.” Philosophy and Phenomenological 

Research  72. 1 (2006): 236.

27 Peter Ikhane “Epistemic Insight from An African Way of Knowing.” 

Themes, Issues and Problems in African Philosophy.Ed. Isaac E. 

Ukpokolo. Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillian, 2017, 141.
28 Ikhane, “Epistemic Insight from An African Way of Knowing”, 141.
29 Ikhane, “Epistemic Insight from An African Way of Knowing”, 142.
30 Hamminga, Bert. "Epistemology from the African Point of 

View."Knowledge Cultures Comparative Western and African 

36 Ekpoma Review, Volume 9, 2022



Epistemology. Ed. Bert Hamminga. Ponza Studies in the Philosophy of 
the Sciences and the Humanities 88, 2005. 57- 82.

31 Hamminga, “Epistemology from the African Point of View” 57-58.
32 Hamminga, “Epistemology from the African Point of View”, 59.
33 Hamminga, “Epistemology from the African Point of View” 60.
34 Hamminga, “Epistemology from the African Point of View” 61.
 35 Nowak, Leszek. “On Collective Subjects in Epistemology: The Marxist 

Case and a Problem for the African Viewpoint.” Knowledge Cultures, 
Comparative Western and African Epistemology.Ed. Hamminga Bert. 
New York: Rodopi, 2005, 117.

36 Aviner i ,  S  and  De-Shal i t ,  Avner.Communi tar ianism and 

Individualism.Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992, 56.

37 ChemhuruMunamato, "An African Communitarian View of Epistemic 

Responsibility." Politikon, South African Journal of Political Studies. 

46.1 (2019): 1-11.
38 Munamato, “An African Communitarian View of Epistemic 

Responsibility” 5.
39 Munamato, “An African Communitarian View of Epistemic 

Responsibility” 7.
40 Michael Eze,  “What is African Communitarianism? Against Consensus 

as a regulative ideal.”South African Journal of Philosophy 27.4 (2008): 
107.

41 Mbiti, J. S. African Religions and Philosophy.London: Heinemann Press, 
1969, 108-109.

37Collective Epistemology and The Privilege...


