African traditional socialism: a semantic analysis of political ideology

An attempt to provide an adequate methodology for the use of ideology (socialism) as a source of empirical knowledge. This methodology is twofold: it is necessary to give a descriptive account of the symbols used and to test its validity with empirical data. The descriptive aspects of the ‘socialist’ thesis are ‘communal non-individualistic thinking’, used by Senghor, Nkrumah etc. Translating these symbols into an empirically verifiable hypothesis leads to the conclusion that empirically the thesis of non-individualistic thinking appears true because no individual or group developed a counter-ideology. In the last chapter ‘Towards an active conception of political ideology’ the author argues that the basic purpose of ideology is not to promote knowledge, but to motivate political action. Notes.