Marcien Towa

Marcien Towa was born on the fifth of January 1931 in the village of Endama, near Obala in the Centre Region of Cameroon, into a Beti Catholic family. He attended the public school of Endama from 1941 to 1946, then passed through the pre-seminary of Mva'a, the minor seminary of Akono, and the major seminary of Otélé, earning his baccalaureate in 1955 before undertaking higher studies in philosophy.

From 1962 he taught at the École Normale Supérieure of Yaoundé, where he served as Director of Studies and Deputy Director, and later joined the Department of Philosophy at the University of Yaoundé. In 1971 he rose to prominence with two essays published in the same year: Léopold Sédar Senghor: Négritude ou Servitude? and Essai sur la problématique philosophique dans l'Afrique actuelle, works that became touchstones of modern African philosophical debate.

Towa is remembered as one of the principal critical theorists of post-colonial African thought. He sharply challenged ethnophilosophy, which he judged a subset of European ethnology, and called instead for a rigorous, self-critical philosophy capable of freeing Africa from colonial domination. Scholars have since likened his commitment to philosophy as praxis to that of the Frankfurt School, noting he arrived at kindred conclusions independently.

Beyond the lecture hall he served as Rector of the University of Yaoundé II in 1993 and as mayor of Elig-Mfomo from 1996 to 2002. He died on the second of July 2014 in Yaoundé. His voice endures as one of the clarifying consciences of twentieth-century African philosophy, honored for demanding that his continent think freely and for itself.