The abandonment of the attempt to indigenize and institutionalize modern science and technology on the African continent at the level of theoretical discourse was preceded by the actual material destruction of African institutions of higher learning and research centers as a result of the imposition of structural adjustment programs. Seen in this light, the increasingly prevalent view among decolonial scholars that the African continent does not need research on modern science and technology carried out in formal institutions is nothing but an attempt to make a devastating world-historical defeat for African liberation appear as if it were a triumph over Eurocentrism. This argumentative move is often based on the characterization of modern science as intrinsically colonial in character. Hountondji’s key contribution is to show that a socially and historically sensitive account of the genesis and development of modern science need not lead to the thesis that modern science is intrinsically colonial or intrinsically Western in character.