Prolegomena to Economics as an African Science

This chapter highlights the rational mechanics that underlines the formulation of propositions in conformity with the logic of linking economic production to a geographic location. It starts with a discussion of the relationships between the general dynamics of economics, history, and society and explores the ways in which economic ideas and proposition are received in the specific context of Africa, what interactions and transformations take place (i.e., according to what principles of selection), and what arguments and dynamic justifications are used to reinterpret and even “recreate” the continent as an economic entity. From this will progressively emerge some characteristic traits describing and specifying the “African reference,” as both contingent and necessary—an a posteriori necessity. The chapter also examines the philosophical foundations of development economics and discusses the autonomy of the pragmatics of development. Finally it stresses the need for conceptual reconstructions.