Barry Hallen (5 April 1941) is an American philosopher whose interests include African philosophy, cross-cultural studies, epistemology, and philosophy of language.

Early life and career

He was born in Chicago, Illinois. His mother was the Mississippi blues singer Betty Lou Harrington. He attended Carleton College, Northfield, Minnesota where he studied philosophy. After compulsory military service he attended Boston University, where he received the M.A. (1968) and Ph.D. (1970) in philosophy. In his final year he was awarded the Borden Parker Bowne Fellowship in philosophy. His dissertation was on Karl Popper, a comparative study of the methodologies underlying Popper’s philosophy of science, philosophy of social science, and social and political philosophy.

Thereafter he spent a year traveling and was in Afghanistan when he accepted a position as lecturer in philosophy at the federal University of Lagos, Nigeria (1970). While at Lagos Hallen initiated the first course in African philosophy. He also began a research project in Yoruba Thought/Philosophy that followed along with him when he moved (1975) to the federal University of Ife (now Obafemi Awolowo University), Nigeria.

While at Ife he benefited from the intellectual company of scholars like Wande Abimbola, Rowland Abiodun, Akinsola Akiwowo, Karin Barber, Dorothy Emmet, 'Funmi Faniran Togonu-Bickersteth, Robin Horton, Paulin Hountondji, Roger Makanjuola, Segun Osoba, J. Olubi Sodipo, Pierre Verger, and Kwasi Wiredu. Sodipo became co-director of the research project and in 1986 the two co-authored Knowledge, Belief, and Witchcraft: Analytic Experiments in African Philosophy. It would be republished in 1997 in the USA with a Foreword by W. V. O. Quine.

In 1988 Hallen left Nigeria and moved to Italy with his wife, the Italian photographer and photojournalist Carla De Benedetti (www.cdbstudio.com). While resident in Milan the two became co-directors of Southern Crossroads: Routes of Commerce and Culture through West Africa and the Early Sudan, an associated project of UNESCO's Integral Study of the Silk Roads: Roads of Dialogue (1989-1998). Meanwhile Hallen continued publishing essays in the area of African philosophy.

In 1995 Hallen was offered a fellowship in the W. E. B. Du Bois Institute in the Hutchins Center for African and African American Research at Harvard University. While resident there he completed the manuscript of The Good, the Bad, and the Beautiful: Discourse about Values in Yoruba Culture (2000). In 1997 Hallen was offered a Visiting Professorship in philosophy at Morehouse College, Atlanta, Georgia. That appointment became permanent and he remained at Morehouse for seventeen years. While there he initiated the first course in African and African American Philosophy. He also published African Philosophy: the Analytic Approach (2006) and A Short History of African Philosophy (2002/2009).

Hallen left Morehouse College in 2014 and became resident in Sarasota, Florida (www.barryhallen.com). While there he has continued his research and writing. Reading Wiredu will be published in 2021.

Ideas

In his writings Hallen pays particular attention to the role of methodologies in academic philosophy. Philosophers have a variety of methodologies in their "toolbox"—such as analysis, phenomenology, hermeneutics, and Marxism—each of which might provide interesting insights into the same subject-matter. Philosophical methodologies also have to target some form of reasoning or rationality. Otherwise there would be no basis on which to proceed.

In his work on Yoruba language and culture (1997; 2000) he experiments with analysis, using an adaptation of ordinary language philosophy. Since the analyses of Yoruba discourse are also translated into the English language, problems relating to the accurate representation of abstract meanings in translation become relevant. In the areas of epistemology and ethics, Yoruba discourse demonstrates systematic and original criteria for the evaluation of information and behavior.

His A Short History of African Philosophy (2009) features the ideas of a variety of African philosophers, again on the basis of the methodologies they employ. Reading Wiredu (2021) does something similar with the writings of the Ghanaian philosopher, Kwasi Wiredu.

In published essays Hallen explores the relevance of philosophy to other disciplines involved with African Studies, such as aesthetics, anthropology, art history, religious studies, and sociology.

Bibliography

Books

• 2021. Reading Wiredu. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press. ISBN 9780253057013
• 2009. A Short History of African Philosophy, 2nd rev. ed., Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press. ISBN 9780253221230
• 2006 African Philosophy: The Analytic Approach, Trenton, New Jersey: Africa World Press. ISBN 9781592213702
• 2000 The Good, the Bad, and the Beautiful: Discourse about Values in Yoruba Culture, Bloomington: Indiana University Press. ISBN 9780253214164
• 1997 Knowledge, Belief, and Witchcraft: Analytic Experiments in African Philosophy, coauthored with J. Olubi Sodipo. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. ISBN 9780804728232

Select Philosophy Book Chapters

• 2020. "African Sculpture: Interrelating the Verbal and Visual in Yoruba Aesthetics," in Philosophy of Sculpture: Historical Problems, Contemporary Approaches, edited by Kristin Gjesdal, Fred Rush and Ingvild Torsen, 93-110. New York: Routledge.
• 2020. "Discussions of African Communitarianism with Specific Reference to Menkiti and Rawls," in Menkiti on Community and Becoming a Person, edited by E. Etieyibo and P. Ikuenobe, 29-36. Lanham, MD: Lexington.
• 2019. "be-ing and being Ramose," in The Tenacity of Truthfulness [Ugumu wa Dhanaya Ukweli], edited by Helen Lauer & Helen Yitah, 13-20. Dar es Salaam, Tanzania: Mkuki na Nyota Publishers.
• 2018. "The Journey of African Philosophy," in Method, Substance, and the Future of African Philosophy, edited by E. Etieyibo, 35-52. Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan.
• 2016. "Ifa: Sixteen Odu, Sixteen Questions," in Ifa: Divination, Knowledge, Power, and Performance, edited by J. K. Olupona and Rowland Abiodun, 91-99. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press.
• 2016. "Can a Nation Be a Community?" in Disentangling Consciencism: Essays on Kwame Nkrumah’s Philosophy, edited by Martin Ajei, 291-302. Lanham, MD: Lexington.
• 2015. "Translation, Interpretation, and Alternative Epistemologies," in Thinkers without Borders: Essays in Comparative Philosophy, edited by Arindam Chakrabarti and Ralph Weber, 55-68. London: Bloomsbury Academic.
• 2014 "Select Issues and Controversies in Contemporary African Philosophy," in Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplements 74: Philosophical Traditions, edited by Anthony O'Hear, 109-122. London: Royal Institute of Philosophy and Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• 2012 "Acerca de la filosofia Africana [On African Philosophy]," coauthored with V. Y. Mudimbe, in La Filosofia: En Nuestro Tiempo Historico [Philosophy: In Our Historical Time], edited by Felix Valdes Garcia and Yohanka Leon del Rio, 19-62. Instituto Cubano del Libro and Los Cristales, Panama: Ruth Casa Editorial.
• 2004 "Contemporary Anglophone African Philosophy: A Survey," in A Companion to African Philosophy, edited by Kwasi Wiredu, 99-148. Malden, Massachusetts and Oxford, UK: Blackwell Publishing.
• 2004 "Yoruba Moral Epistemology," in A Companion to African Philosophy, edited by Kwasi Wiredu, 296-303. Malden, Massachusetts and Oxford, UK: Blackwell Publishing.
• 2002. "Modes of Thought, Ordinary Language, and Cognitive Diversity," in Perspectives in African Philosophy, edited by Claude Sumner and Samuel Wolde Yohannes, 214-222. Addis Ababa, Ethiopia: Addis Ababa University Press.
• 2001 "'Witches' as Superior Intellects: Challenging a Cross-Cultural Superstition," in Dialogues of Witchcraft: Anthropology, Philosophy, and the Possibilities of Discovery, edited by Diane Ciekawy and George C. Bond, 80-100. Athens: Ohio University Press.
• 2000 "Variations on a Theme: Ritual, Performance, Intellect," in Insight and Artistry: A Cross-Cultural Study of Art and Divination in Central and West Africa, edited by John Pemberton, 168-74. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press.
• 1996 "Analytic Philosophy and Traditional Thought: A Critique of Robin Horton," in African Philosophy: A Classical Approach, edited by P. English and K. M. Kalumba, 216-28. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.
• 1993 "Secrecy (Awo) and Objectivity in the Methodology and Literature of Ifa Divination," coauthored with 'Wande Abimbola, in SECRECY: African Art that Conceals and Reveals, edited by Mary Nooter, 212-21. New York: The Museum for African Art.

Select Philosophy Journal Articles

• 2019 "Reconsidering the Case for Consensual Governance in Africa," Second Order: An African Journal of Philosophy n.s. III, no. 1: 1-21.
• 2010 "'Ethnophilosophy' Redefined?" Thought and Practice: A Journal of the Philosophical Association of Kenya 2, no. 1 n.s. (June): 73-85.
• 2005 "Heidegger, Hermeneutics and African Philosophy," Africa e Mediterraneo 53 (December): 46-53.
• 2003 "Not a House Divided," Journal on African Philosophy 2: 1-15.
• 1998 "Academic Philosophy and African Intellectual Liberation," African Philosophy 11, no. 2 (November): 93-97.
• 1998 "Moral Epistemology: When Propositions Come Out of Mouths," International Philosophical Quarterly 38, no. 2 (June): 187-204.
• 1997 "African Meanings, Western Words," African Studies Review 40, no. 1 (April): 1-11.
• 1997 "What's It Mean? 'Analytic' African Philosophy," Quest: Philosophical Discussions X, no. 2 (December): 66-77.
• 1995 "Indeterminacy, Ethnophilosophy, Linguistic Philosophy, African Philosophy," Philosophy 70, no. 273 (July): 377-93.
• 1995 "Some Observations about Philosophy, Postmodernism, and Art in African Studies," The African Studies Review 38, no. 1 (April): 69-80.
• 1994 "The House of the Inu: Keys to the Structure of a Yoruba Theory of the 'Self'" (coauthored with J. Olubi Sodipo), Quest: Philosophical Discussions VIII, no. 1 (June): 3-23.
• 1988 "Afro-Brazilian Mosques in West Africa" (with Carla De Benedetti), Mimar: Architecture in Development 29: 16-23.
• 1981 "The Open Texture of Oral Tradition," Theoria to Theory XIV, no. 3: 327-32.
• 1979 "The Art Historian as Conceptual Analyst," The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism XXXVII, no. 3: 303-13.
• 1977 "Robin Horton on Critical Philosophy and Traditional Thought," Second Order: An African Journal of Philosophy 6, no. 1: 81-92.
• 1976 "Phenomenology and the Exposition of African Traditional Thought," Second Order: An African Journal of Philosophy 5, no. 2: 45-65.
• 1975 "A Philosopher's Approach to Traditional Culture," Theoria to Theory IX, no. 4: 259-72.

Select African Cultural Publications

• 1995. "'My Mercedes Has Four Legs!' 'Traditional' as an Attribute of African Equestrian Cultures" (with Carla De Benedetti), in Horsemen of Africa: History, Iconography and Symbolism. Milan, Italy: Center for the study of African Archaeology, 49-64.
• 1993. "The Technology of Transport along the Asian and African Silk Roads: Some Observations and Comparisons" (with Carla De Benedetti), in Historical Routes: a Patrimony to Safeguard, edited by M. Boriani and A. Cazzani. Milan, Italy: Dipartimento di Architettura, Politecnico di Milano & Edito da Guerini e Associati, 25-35.
• 1993. "National Arabian Horse Competitions in the Sultanate of Oman" (with Carla De Benedetti), The Arab Horse Society News (75th Jubilee issue) 81: 49.
• 1993. "Oman: la Rinascita del Cavallo Arabo [Oman: the Renaissance of the Arabian Horse]" (with Carla De Benedetti), Purosangue Arabo II, no. 3: 22-27.
• 1993. "Africa: Wall Surfaces Made Precious with Design and Colour in the Palaces of African Kings" (with Carla De Benedetti), Casa Vogue 249: 110-115.
• 1991. "A Thousand and One Horses: In the Sultanate of Oman" (with Carla De Benedetti), Cavallo VI, no. 59: 48-59.
• 1991. "Nigeria: Calabar en Faste [Nigeria: Calabar During Festivities]" (with Carla De Benedetti), Grands Reportages 111: 102-112.
• 1989. "Nigeria: I Dragoni di Kano [Nigeria: The Dragoons of Kano]" (with Carla De Benedetti), Cavallo IV, no. 37: 20-32.
• 1989. "Les Rois Cousus d'Or [Kings Draped in Gold]" (with Carla De Benedetti), Grands Reportages, 94: 34-42.
• 1988. "In the Kingdoms of African Princes" (with Carla De Benedetti), Ambiente 7-8/88: 120-128.
• 1988. "Afro-Brazilian Mosques in West Africa" (with Carla De Benedetti), Mimar: Architecture in Development 29: 16-23.
• 1988. "Moscheen: Brasilianischer Barock in Westafrika [Mosques: Brazilian Baroque in West Africa]" (with Carla De Benedetti), Hauser 4, no. 88: 162-68.
• 1988. "Il Bel Paese che l'Italia Sporca [Nigeria: The Beautiful Country that Italy has Polluted]" (with Carla De Benedetti), Corriere Della Sera 28: 64-89.
• 1988. "Africa: Cottons of Colour" (with Carla De Benedetti), L'Uomo Vogue 185.