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On account of the impressive yield of empirical science since the dawn of modern era, theorists of human behavior have sought eagerly to adopt its methodology to explain and predict behavior in the same way that natural science does with respect to natural phenomena. Thus, the positivist principle endorsed the unity of science approach to both the natural and social worlds. Modern social science, in its specific forms of sociology, economics, and so on, confidently embraced the positivist principle. In a short period of time, political economy was transformed into economic science. The goal was to purge the social sciences of their supposedly evaluative content. In due course, the idea of objective scientific truth came to be questioned along with the positivist paradigm. Epistemological relativism à la Kuhn is to be credited with this intellectual shift. But this novel theoretical approach was more easily accommodated by epistemologists of science than scientists themselves. Scientists hardly questioned their methodologies of research and the cognitive field of successful theories. Similarly, in the social sciences, neoclassical economics remained dominant. The neoclassical motto was that economics as science answered only questions of efficiency, not evaluative questions of social justice. The Human Project and the Temptations of Science argues that the model of epistemological unity, at one time embracing positivism, at another time supporting epistemological relativism, is questionable. While empirical science does yield knowledge of the natural world, knowledge of the social world - the world of humans - is necessarily value-laden. Despite the quantitative veneer of neoclassical economics - the dominant paradigm in economics - economic analysis cannot avoid questions of value. The reason is that its foundational concepts, such as rationality and the maximization of expected utility, reflect the necessary value-oriented nature of human behavior. The question posed, then, by The Human Project and the Temptations of Science is what sort of optimal values should humans adopt

Over the years Robin Horton has argued for what he refers to as the 'continuity thesis' according to which there are theoretical similarities between African tra- ditional thought and modern Western science. Horton's thesis stands in contrast to the standard Western anthropological appraisal of traditional African thought. The standard appraisal (Levy-Bruhl, Durkheim, Evans-Pritchard, et al.) stated that the two modes of thought were incommensurate. I argue that while the continuity thesis holds for certain aspects of African thought – empirical, proto- scientific and metaphysical – it does not apply to traditional African religious expression. My thesis here is that belief systems founded on magic, religion and their combinations should be understood as belonging to what might be referred to as general metaphysics. I argue too that if the continuity thesis is to apply to the history of thought in Africa then the more apt comparison should be between the different phases of technological and scientific thought of the West. Thus Horton's claim that traditional African religious thought is configured accord- ing to the goals of explanation, prediction and control thereby putting it on the same epistemic plane as modern Western science is thereby rendered irrelevant. On the other hand the goal of traditional African religion like that of many other religious traditions – including those of the West – has principally been to seek a conscious communion with ancestors and anthropomorphised godheads and spiritual entities of the metaphysical realm.






Lansana Keita, University of the Gambia, The Gambia and BARA, University of Arizona, USA.

The contemporary social sciences emerged in the West from the eighteenth century as new modes of technology and scientific research developed. There is no doubt that technological advances led to the triumph of empiricism over metaphysics. This was the basis for the transformation of the nomenclatures of natural philosophy and moral philosophy into natural science and moral science respectively. As the empiricist methodologies of the natural sciences became successful, the social sciences chose to emulate their techniques. Thus, the methodological claim was made that that the social sciences and their division of labour compartmentalisation of the social world reflected that world in objectivist terms. But the fact that humans themselves were involved in describing and explaining the behaviours of other humans meant that a subjective element would be always be involved unless serious attempts were made for cognitive correctives and a self-conscious regard for consistent objectivity. While research in archaeology is relatively objective in its scientific findings, this is not the case with the other social sciences – especially anthropology and history. There has been an arbitrary Eurocentric creation and reification of theories and terms founded on whimsical and unsupported claims concerning the evolutionary status of Homo sapiens Africanus.






Lansana Keita, University of Ibadan, Nigeria. Email: keitalans7@gmail.com

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