Anton Wilhelm Amo's Philosophical Dissertations on Mind and Body - Paperbackby Justin E. H. Smith (Editor), Stephen Menn (Editor) Anton Wilhelm Amo (c. 1703 after 1752) was the first African philosopher in the modern period to write in the European philosophical tradition and study and teach in European universities. At the dawn of the eighteenth century, while still a small boy, he was sent from his home in present day Ghana to Amsterdam. From there he was sent to Germany as a court attendant of Duke Anton Ulrich of