A CRITIQUE OF ULTRA-MATERIAL EMPIRICISM IN THE PHILOSOPHY OF KWAME NKRUMAH

Abstract

The question of the meaning, source and nature of knowledge arose quite early in the history of the philosophic enterprise.  It is a question that is at the basis of the philosophical enquiry. It has continued to colour and shape philosophical discourses. For anything to be known at all, it is imperative that how it ought to be known be clearly outlined. Philosophers from antiquities to the contemporary era have endeavoured to unambiguously chat the path to true knowledge. In this endeavour, many schools of thought have emerged but two patterns of viewing knowledge bestride the discourse. Thinkers have generally devolved into those that hold the true knowledge of reality comes from the mind or spirit, and those who believe that the knowledge of the world comes from the senses. Kwame Nkrumah not only embraced the latter, upheld such a materialist view of the nature, and knowledge of the world that everything in the world is reduced to the operations and conversions of matter. This research x-rays Nkrumah’s ultra-materialist epistemology. Library research and philosophical analysis remain the key methodologies employed in this work. Key words: Ultra-Material, Empiricism, Knowledge