Paulin Hountondji: A Decisive Thinker

Résumé 0

Unlike its neighbors, Dahomey, renamed Benin in 1975, opened up very early on to the schools and Catholicism that had followed in the wake of French colonization. The graduates trained in this system moved on to the French-speaking countries of West Africa. By the 1950s, Dahomey had a large number of qualified staff working in the public services of West African countries. As if to counter its small size, the country has developed an intellectual power that marks it out as the “Latin Quarter of Africa”. In contrast to the diasporic movement of Beninese intellectuals stationed all over the world, Paulin Hountondji has regularly taken initiatives that have brought dozens of major intellectuals to Benin, notably to the University of Cotonou and the Centre des Hautes Études in Porto Novo. In a way, he has followed up on the “Benin Latin Quarter” label. On a more personal level, his outstanding research and publications have given the history of philosophy and its teaching in Africa one of its defining moments.