Journal of African Studies and Sustainable Development

One of the major contributions of the modern era of philosophy to human knowledge was the adoption of the method of the sciences into the domain of philosophy in their quest for a knowledge that is certain, clear and indubitable. Consequently within this period of human history it was upheld that method was a guarantee for truth and any form of human knowledge that cannot be subjected to the scientific method cannot be regarded as knowledge. For thinkers like David Hume such can only be regarded as mere sophistry. The adoption of method therefore was to eliminate prejudices; doubts; subjectivities and all forms of unclarities because prejudice itself was seen by most of the modern philosophers as the source of all errors in our reasoning. This paper however differs with this position and argues that prejudice as it were is significant in our quest to know in our everydayness. It posits that the modern era of philosophy held a negative view about prejudice, thus it was prejudiced against prejudice. It further argues that prejudice is a condition for human understanding and an integral part of human knowing and understanding. The paper adopts the method of critical and textual analysis. The paper in its findings discovered that prejudice is epistemologically significant in our everyday life as it concerns our knowledge of the world, our fellow human beings and the works of man. Keywords: Epistemology, Prejudice, knowled

Open Full Text (PDF)