Q0549

“What needs to be characterized and critically examined are African ideas and…” — Sophie Oluwole (Socrates and Ọ̀rúnmìlà: Two Patron Saints…)

Verified English quotation. Primary source: Socrates and Ọ̀rúnmìlà: Two Patron Saints of Classical Philosophy (2014). Theme: language.

English

What needs to be characterized and critically examined are African ideas and beliefs… philosophy is about what people say rather than what they do.
Thinker Sophie Oluwole
School Africana Philosophy
Source Socrates and Ọ̀rúnmìlà: Two Patron Saints of Classical Philosophy (2014)
Theme Language
Another quotation More from this thinker

Source and attribution

The archive attributes this English wording to Socrates and Ọ̀rúnmìlà: Two Patron Saints of Classical Philosophy (2014) and files it under Africana Philosophy. That locator distinguishes the passage from loose internet attributions: readers can return to the named work or section to check translation, surrounding argument, and edition-specific wording.

About Sophie Oluwole

Sophie Bosede Oluwole (1935–2018) was a Nigerian philosopher and the first woman to earn a doctorate in philosophy in Nigeria. She taught at the University of Lagos and argued that Yoruba oral traditions, especially Ifá, contain rigorous classical philosophy comparable to Greek sources.

How to read this passage

Across 4 recurring voices here (notably Ludwig Wittgenstein and Kwasi Wiredu), language is framed through Analytic Philosophy and Africana Philosophy. Some passages define language; others warn how it fails; still others relocate it inside habit, community, or language. This passage enters that discussion through language, reason.

Concepts in this quote

Language
Language appears in this archive as a live philosophical concern—not a slogan. These verified English passages show how thinkers treat language as a problem of judgment, practice, or explanation.
Reason
Reason is the capacity to give and assess reasons—central to logic, science, ethics, and public argument.

How to cite this quotation

APA: Sophie Oluwole. (n.d.). What needs to be characterized and critically examined are African ideas and beliefs… philosophy is about what people say rather than what they do. In Philosophy Blind Box. https://www.philosophydef.com/quotes/q0549

MLA: Sophie Oluwole. “What needs to be characterized and critically examined….” Philosophy Blind Box, https://www.philosophydef.com/quotes/q0549.

Chicago: Sophie Oluwole. “What needs to be characterized and critically examined….” Philosophy Blind Box. Accessed 2026. https://www.philosophydef.com/quotes/q0549.

Frequently asked questions

What is the source of the quotation “What needs to be characterized and critically examined…”?

The passage is attributed to Sophie Oluwole, Socrates and Ọ̀rúnmìlà: Two Patron Saints of Classical Philosophy (2014). The archive attributes this English wording to Socrates and Ọ̀rúnmìlà: Two Patron Saints of Classical Philosophy (2014) and files it under Africana Philosophy. That locator distinguishes the passage from loose internet attributions: readers can return to the named work or section to check translation, surrounding argument, and edition-specific wording.

What does Sophie Oluwole mean by language?

Across 4 recurring voices here (notably Ludwig Wittgenstein and Kwasi Wiredu), language is framed through Analytic Philosophy and Africana Philosophy. Some passages define language; others warn how it fails; still others relocate it inside habit, community, or language. This passage enters that discussion through language, reason.

Same thinker

More from Sophie Oluwole

  1. There is nothing that is absolutely material. There is nothing that is absolutely non-material. And in all phenomenons in the world, the two are there together.
  2. It would be ridiculous to raise the question as to whether or not Ọ̀rúnmìlà was religious. He was the leader of a religious cult which established a school structured like Plato's Academy.
  3. Look at Christianity and Islam. They have the Bible and the Koran… Now, where is our own book on Orunmila? It is a question that should worry all rational Yoruba and African people.

All quotations by Sophie Oluwole

Same theme

More on language

  1. It is through wonder that people both now begin and first began to philosophize.
  2. A person's character is their destiny.
  3. What is opposed brings together; from what differs comes the finest harmony.
  4. Death is nothing to us: for what has been dissolved has no sensation, and what has no sensation is nothing to us.
  5. Pleasure is the beginning and end of the happy life — not the pleasures of profligates, but freedom from pain in the body and from disturbance in the soul.

Browse the language theme