ABSTRACT
Chapter 2 provides a framework for understanding why Nigerian philosophers have failed to engage with the local context of Nigeria as the most crucial laboratory for philosophical reflections. Using Pierre Bourdieu’s idea of the homo academicus, Afolayan argues that Nigeria’s postcolonial political economy as well as the attendant politics of the academy played a very important role in creating a fissure between academic philosophy and real life philosophy, and hence have undermined the active participation of Nigerian philosophers in the Nigerian condition. As homo academicus Nigerianus, Nigerian philosophers essentially became a captive of the very environment which they are professionally mandated to engage.
