William Emmanuel Abraham | |
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| Born | Kojo Abraham (1934-05-28)28 May 1934 (age 91) |
| Education | Adisadel Secondary School |
| Alma mater | University of Ghana; All Souls College, Oxford |
| Occupation | Philosopher |
William Emmanuel Abraham, also known asWillie E. Abraham or, to give hisday name,Kojo Abraham (born on Monday, 28 May 1934), is a Ghanaian retired philosopher.
Abraham was educated at the Government Boys' School andAdisadel Secondary School inCape Coast, Ghana. He obtained a BA from theUniversity of Ghana, graduating with first-class honours in philosophy in 1957.[1] Travelling to England to study atOxford University, he received a B.Phil. and was the first African to be elected a Fellow ofAll Souls College.[2] In 1960, he was nominated to be a Governor of theSchool of Oriental and African Studies,London University.
On his return to Ghana in 1962, he joined the Department of Philosophy at theUniversity of Ghana, and published his bookThe Mind of Africa, a philosophical work arguing forPan-Africanism. He was elected vice-president of theGhana Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1963,[1] in that capacity visiting scientific facilities in the Soviet Union in a seven-week tour in the summer of 1963. He became a close associate ofKwame Nkrumah, collaborating on Nkrumah's workConsciencism, published in 1964.[2] Abraham replacedConor Cruise O'Brien as Vice-Chancellor of the University of Ghana in September 1965.[1] He also chaired a commission that reported in 1964 on "alleged irregularities and malpractices in connection with the issue of import licences", and was a non-resident lecturer in African Studies at theKwame Nkrumah Ideological Institute from 1963 until its closure in 1966.
It was Willie Abraham, not Nkrumah, who wrote the bookConsciencism. Soon after the book was first published in 1964, the people who knew Nkrumah and Willie Abraham said it was Abraham, not Nkrumah who wrote the book. AsAma Biney stated in her doctoral thesis,Kwame Nkrumah: An Intellectual Biography:
"There is considerable speculation that Nkrumah was not the writer of this book and rather Prof. William Abraham was instead the author....The impenetrable style of writing is unlike that of Nkrumah's other more accessible works." – (Ama B. Biney,Kwame Nkrumah: An Intellectual Biography, doctoral thesis, University of London, 2007, p. 231).
Identified as "Nkrumah's court philosopher", Abraham was arrested in the1966 coup which establishedJoseph Arthur Ankrah as president.[3] He emigrated to the United States and held academic positions atMacalaster College and theUniversity of California, Santa Cruz, where he is currently Professor Emeritus of Philosophy. He has had a life-long interest in the life and work of the eighteenth-century Ghanaian philosopherAnton Wilhelm Amo.
