64 Philosophia Africana Helen Verran Science and an African Logic Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001. Hardback. Vii + 277 pages. ISBN: 0-226-85389-6 Many researchers have grappled with what Yehuda Elkana described as the "Great Divide," the idea that there exists a basic and essential difference in modes of thought — both in content and especially in logic and form — between Western and non-Western societies (1981: 14-6). The "Great Divide" is often expressed as a dif- ference between so-called traditional and modern, pre-scientific and science-orient- ed, literate and non-literate, industrial and pre-industrial, developed and develop- ing, etc., societies. The range of issues relevant to the discussions run from theories of growth of knowledge to the practical questions of science policy, and the teach- ing of science in non-Western milieu. With experience as a mathematics educator in Yoruba land, Nigeria, Verran sets out to demolish the "Great Divide" and the uni- versaUst epistemology that it relies on. Actor-Theory Netvs^orks and Constructivism Verran's book is refreshing, adding plenty of interesting twists to the relevant debates. Her style is markedly post-coloniahst, or "postmodern" if you will, and her methodology is relativist. Her influences include the work of Bruno Latour, in addi- tion to the literature of science and technology studies (STS): symmetrical anthro- pology, actor-theory networks approach, and constructivism. Symmetrical anthro- pology makes cocoa farmers in the Ivory Coast and first rate scientists equal objects of study, analyzing both with the same methodology. This approach, surely, must please contemporary Africana philosophers, to whom it seems taboo to compare so- called "traditional African thought" with modern science. However, there are difficulties in Verran's approach. Latour is the primary pro- ponent of the actor-network model of technoscience. In his view, microbes or DNA are "actants" used by scientists such as Louis Pasteur and James Watson as part of a test of strength against their scientific antagonists. Scientists "represent" entities, analogous to the way legislators represent their constituents, not to artists repre- senting the landscape. Entities such as DNA are constructed through the process by which scientists build networks of allies to defeat their scientific rivals. Eor Latour, science is more a constructive than a descriptive enterprise; the relation of scientists to their work is far from a detached one and their modus operandi is much like that of seasoned politicians. Science and politics are inseparable, as Verran notes through her studies of the teaching of science and mathematics in Yoruba primary schools. Yoruba mathematics differs from English mathematics in that it has a base of twen- ty rather than ten. The Yoruba language is a conducive vehicle for getting children in Yorubaland to learn mathematics. Teachers can code switch between English and Yoruba as necessary. But, alas, the Nigerian mihtary government had banned the use