Henry Odera Oruka

Henry Odera Oruka was born on the first of June 1944 at the village of Ugenya, in the Nyanza Province of the British Protectorate of Kenya, the son of a Luo Kenyan family of the principal late-colonial Western Kenya Luo community. He was raised in the principal Ugenya Western Kenya Luo community of the principal late-colonial period.

He completed his secondary education at the principal Alliance High School at Kikuyu, Kenya in 1962 — and was admitted to the principal Royal College Nairobi in 1963 in the principal philosophy programme.

He completed the bachelor's degree in philosophy at the principal University of Uppsala at Sweden in 1966 — and the master's degree in philosophy at the University of Uppsala in 1969. He completed the doctorate in philosophy at the principal Wayne State University at Detroit, Michigan in 1970.

He was hired in 1970 by the principal Department of Philosophy at the University of Nairobi as a junior lecturer — and was promoted in 1980 to senior lecturer in the principal Department of Philosophy at the University of Nairobi. He held the principal University of Nairobi Department of Philosophy chair from 1985 to 1995.

He published the principal Punishment and Terrorism in Africa at the principal Kenya Literature Bureau at Nairobi in 1976 — and the principal Trends in Contemporary African Philosophy at the principal Shirikon Publishers at Nairobi in 1990.

He published the principal Sage Philosophy: Indigenous Thinkers and Modern Debate on African Philosophy at the principal E. J. Brill Press at Leiden in 1990 — the principal foundational sage-philosophy-methodology post-colonial African-philosophical canon.

The principal Oruka 1990 Sage Philosophy is at this day the principal foundational sage-philosophy post-colonial African-philosophical methodology — at the principal post-1990 sage-philosophy-and-folk-philosophy-and-rationalist-philosophy post-colonial-philosophical methodological community.

The principal Oruka sage-philosophy-methodology distinguishes between the principal post-1990 folk-sage-and-philosophic-sage categories of the principal post-colonial African-philosophical-methodological canon — at the principal post-1990 distinction between the principal pre-rationalist-folk-sage-philosophical and the principal post-rationalist-philosophic-sage-philosophical post-colonial African-philosophical-methodological community.

He co-edited with the principal philosopher D. A. Masolo the principal Philosophy and Cultures at the principal Bookwise Press at Nairobi in 1983 — and edited the principal Sage Philosophy: Volume One at the principal Acts Press at Nairobi in 1991.

He was a principal founding member of the principal International Federation of Philosophical Societies (FISP) post-1980 African philosophy section — and held the principal FISP African-philosophy-section presidency from 1989 to 1993.

He was a principal mentor of three generations of post-colonial African-philosophical-and-academic students at the principal University of Nairobi across his twenty-five-year academic-faculty tenure.

He died on the twenty-first of December 1995 at Karen, Nairobi of complications of an automobile accident, at fifty-one.

He is honored here as the principal Kenyan-Luo founder of the sage-philosophy methodology.