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Anton Wilhelm Amo

African · Africa · 1703 to 1759

Scholar born in what is now Ghana who taught philosophy at German universities and argued that the mind itself does not sense.

What it is

Anton Wilhelm Amo was born in Axim, in what is now Ghana, around 1700, and became the first African-born professor of philosophy in Germany. He was brought to the Netherlands as a small boy by the Dutch West India Company, was given to a German duke, and was educated in his court and then at the universities of Halle and Wittenberg.

He wrote on the nature of the human mind and the relation of mind and body, in a critical response to Descartes. He taught at Halle and Jena, and in the later 1740s he left Germany to return to Africa, where his later life is obscure.

The main ideas

  • The mind does not feel. In his dissertation On the Impassivity of the Human Mind (1734) he argued against the claim, which he traced to Descartes, that the soul has a passive power of sensation. The mind, he held, is a purely active, immaterial spirit and cannot receive impressions in the way a body receives heat.
  • A textbook of method. His Treatise on the Art of Philosophizing Soberly and Accurately was a manual for his philosophy lectures.
  • A defence of African rights in law. An early disputation, now lost, is reported to have argued against the legality of slavery in Europe, on the grounds of the rights of African kings.
  • A rare path. Born in Africa, brought to Europe as a child, and trained as a philosopher, he became a university teacher at a time when almost none of his background did.

What it looks like in practice

Picture someone who touches a hot pan and says that they feel pain, and who is then asked whether the feeling is in the mind or the body. Amo's position would be that the mind, as an active and immaterial thing, does not take in feeling as a body takes in heat, so that the question must be answered by what belongs to the living body. This is an illustration of the idea, not a quotation.

Books and moments

  • On the Impassivity of the Human Mind (1734) is his dissertation at Wittenberg, on the mind and its relation to sensation.
  • The Treatise on the Art of Philosophizing Soberly and Accurately (1738) is his lecture manual.
  • On the Rights of Moors in Europe is a lost disputation from his student days at Halle.

Questions and criticism

  • What exactly was his view? His thinking is known from a few texts, and scholars are still working out how his position on mind and body fits with those of Descartes and the German schools.
  • Why did he leave? He returned to Africa in the later 1740s, and the reasons are not known.
  • Why is he so little known? Despite his place as a pioneer, he was rarely discussed for two centuries, and his rediscovery has changed how the history of early modern philosophy is told.

Close neighbours

He studied and taught within the school of Christian Wolff and his followers, and his work answers Descartes. The pages on Descartes, Leibniz and Wiredu show related questions about mind and about African philosophy.

Written by epchē in our own words, and checked against independent sources on 9 October 2026. The sources are listed below.

Who they connect to

Influenced by

  • Gottfried Leibniz · Amo studied at German universities where the philosophy of Leibniz and Wolff dominated. (scholars disagree about this link)
  • René Descartes · Amo worked within the mind and body problem set by Descartes.

Reacted against

  • René Descartes · Amo argued that the mind does not itself sense, rejecting Descartes' view of mind and body interacting. (scholars disagree about this link)

Other African thinkers

Sources we used

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