> Why isn't it just a good thing that Ethiopia had a part to play in the development of civilization as well? Did Ethiopia have a part to play in the developme

> Why isn't it just a good thing that Ethiopia had a part to play in the development of civilization as well? Did Ethiopia have a part to play in the development of Western thought? Given his own final question, that seems to be the supposition of the author of the article - '... one might wonder: will Yacob and Amo also one day be elevated to the position they deserve among the philosophers of the Age of Enlightenment?' But Herbjørnsrud (the author) gives no evidence that either Yacob or Ano influenced European thinking any more than Locke's et al.'s contemporaries. (Quick - before looking them up in the Wikipedia - who was Christian Wolff? Francis Hutcheson? Nicolas Malebranche?) What evidence Herbjørnsrud presents indicates Yacob died in obscurity, unknown to Europeans, and Ano was at best '... one of the most prominent Wolffians.' [See Christian Wolff above.] Yet the author wants to immediately set these two among the luminaries (e.g. Kant) of European thinking. Is Herbjørnsrud trying to push an Afrocentric narrative? He discusses only two African thinkers in his article, so it's easy to see why the OP might conclude this, but setting that aside, it seems Herbjørnsrud at minimum wants to promote certain Progressive principles, e.g. 'Neither was Amo alone in bringing /diversity/ or /cosmopolitanism/ to the University of Halle in the 1720s and ’30s.' [Emphasis mine.] While this is neither good nor bad, ignoring the undercurrent of Herbjørnsrud's article does nobody favors. (Of course, he wrote, _Global Knowledge: Renaissance for a New Enlightenment_, so what should we expect of Herbjørnsrud?)