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6Introduction to Human Dignity in African ThoughtIn Motsamai Molefe & Christopher Allsobrook (eds.), Human Dignity in an African Context, Springer Verlag. pp. 1-22. 2023.The introductory chapter gives the reader an overall sense of the book. The book focuses on human dignity in an African context. The chapter aims to convey a sense of the scope of African conceptions of human dignity, their contested nature, and their importance for the broader literature on human dignity. It also motivates and justifies our focus in the book on perspectives and voices from an African context in relation to the subject of human dignity. Finally, it gives the reader a sense of th…Read more
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10Human Dignity in an African Context (edited book)Springer Verlag. 2023.This book is a contribution to African philosophy, by philosophers focusing specifically on the concept of human dignity in ethical theory. The concept of ‘human dignity’ denotes the intrinsic and superlative worth associated with human beings in virtue of which we owe them utmost moral regard. Although dignity is a foundational concept for African philosophy, there remains scant literature in African philosophy dedicated to critical and systematic reflection on the concept of human dignity. Thi…Read more
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10An African Communitarian Conception of Dignity in Mutual RecognitionIn Motsamai Molefe & Christopher Allsobrook (eds.), Human Dignity in an African Context, Springer Verlag. pp. 125-154. 2023.I argue in this chapter against a common Kantian-inspired misconception of human dignity that has prevailed in African philosophical discussions of the concept of late. This approach substitutes the normative ground of dignity in our inherent capacity for individual rational autonomy for our inherent capacity for communal relationality. Although this African communitarian correction to Kantian individualism rightly picks up on the relational character of human dignity in African ethics and polit…Read more
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Universal human rights from an African social contractIn Edwin E. Etieyibo (ed.), Perspectives in social contract theory, The Council For Research in Values and Philosophy. 2018.
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A genealogy of displacement in the South African land questionIn Bianca Boteva-Richter & Sarhan Dhouib (eds.), Political Philosophy From an Intercultural Perspective: Power Relations in a Global World, Routledge. 2021.
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11Introduction: Public and Private Disruption in the Twenty-First CenturyPhilosophical Papers 50 (3): 347-356. 2022.The arrival of Covid-19 in 2020 brought severe disruption to our public and our private lives, and also to ordinary normative boundaries we maintain between the two which we had previously taken fo...
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25Freedom from Black Governmentality under Privatized ApartheidPhilosophical Papers 50 (3): 357-386. 2022.Many anticipated that the formal demise of public apartheid would free black citizens of South Africa from systematic racial oppression; but apartheid was privatized and carries on, with the aid of...
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8Introduction to African Political Theory of NeedsIn Motsamai Molefe & Christopher Allsobrook (eds.), Towards an African Political Philosophy of Needs, Springer Verlag. pp. 1-19. 2021.This introductory chapter explains the rationale for the publication of this collected volume and provides an overview of the general philosophical problems which these contributions confront. We characterise two distinct approaches to political philosophy which distinguish different chapters. While the first set of authors may be said to take an objective view of needs, most often grounded, in necessary features of personhood, the second set of accounts leave needs politically contested. We arg…Read more
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9Duty to Human Needs from African RightsIn Motsamai Molefe & Christopher Allsobrook (eds.), Towards an African Political Philosophy of Needs, Springer Verlag. pp. 187-204. 2021.This final chapter argues that the determination of public duties to our needs in African politics ought to be based on established social and political rights derived from recognised African customary norms. The argument is motivated by a basic limitation with two opposed approaches to African political theory of needs—realist and communitarian—which struggle with the naturalistic fallacy in determining objective public needs, since they dismiss the security of rights-based law as the basis for…Read more
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12Towards an African Political Philosophy of Needs (edited book)Springer Verlag. 2021.This book focuses on the domains of moral philosophy, political philosophy, and political theory within African philosophy. At the heart of the volume is a call to imagine African political philosophy as embodying a needs-based political vision. While discourses in African political philosophy have fixated on the normative framework of human rights law to articulate demands for social and global justice, this book charts a new frontier in African political thought by turning from ‘rights’ to ‘ne…Read more
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Towards an African Political Philosophy of Needs (edited book)Palgrave Macmillan. 2021.This book focuses on the domains of moral philosophy, political philosophy, and political theory within African philosophy. At the heart of the volume is a call to imagine African political philosophy as embodying a needs-based political vision. While discourses in African political philosophy have fixated on the normative framework of human rights law to articulate demands for social and global justice, this book charts a new frontier in African political thought by turning from ‘rights’ to ‘ne…Read more
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11Tenure rights recognition in South African land reformSouth African Journal of Philosophy 38 (4): 408-418. 2019.
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22Consensual recognition of universal rights in african customAngelaki 24 (2): 22-33. 2019.Rights are commonly distinguished in African ethics from Western rights according to the distinct ideas of personhood which ground them. However, this sacrifices universality for cultural specificity. Against this approach, I argue that universal rights are better supported by consensual rights recognition. I show how normative justification of rights from consensual recognition is consistent with deliberative ideas of justice in African ethics. Africanist criticism, of individualist bias in Eur…Read more
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Editorial: African philosophy and RightsTheoria: A Journal of Social and Political Theory 65. 2018.
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The Dialectical Tradition in South AfricaTheoria: A Journal of Social and Political Theory 59 (130): 87-92. 2012.
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20This thesis defends an ontological and epistemological account of Michel Foucault's post-structuralist philosophy, to argue that political philosophy needs to take into account the historical and political contingency of subjectivity and discourse. I show that by addressing the historical and political contingency of knowledge, Foucault's work overcomes the flaw of foundational epistemology in political philosophy, which treats true discourse as universal and disinterested. In doing so I hope to…Read more
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28Blackout: Freedom, without PowerTheoria: A Journal of Social and Political Theory 59 (132): 60-78. 2012.This article attributes the conception of 'freedom-without-power' which dominates contemporary Western political philosophy to a reification of social agency that mystifies contexts of human capacities and achievements. It suggests that Plato's analogy between the structure of the soul and the polis shows how freedom is a consequence, rather than a condition, of political relations, mediated by inter-subjective contestation. From this basis, the article draws on the work of Raymond Geuss to argu…Read more
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23Liberty through Political Representation and Rights RecognitionTheoria: A Journal of Social and Political Theory 64 (150). 2017.
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15Blackout: Freedom, without PowerTheoria: A Journal of Social and Political Theory 59 60-78. 2012.This article attributes the conception of 'freedom-without-power' which dominates contemporary Western political philosophy to a reification of social agency that mystifies contexts of human capacities and achievements. It suggests that Plato's analogy between the structure of the soul and the polis shows how freedom is a consequence, rather than a condition, of political relations, mediated by inter-subjective contestation. From this basis, the article draws on the work of Raymond Geuss to argu…Read more
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20This thesis identifies and explains a fundamental philosophical problem of self-implication in Marxian ideology criticism that has led to its misuse and rejection in social theory and political philosophy. I argue that Friedrich Nietzsche’s development of genealogy as a method of social criticism complements ideology criticism in a way that overcomes this problem, by addressing it explicitly, rather than trying to avoid it. In making this argument, I hope to bridge a widely perceived gap between…Read more
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25Beyond Reasonable Doubt – a paradox of ideological immunitySouth African Journal of Philosophy 31 (2): 265-277. 2012.Ideology criticism, like scepticism, calls into question the objective or justified status of beliefs. However, where scepticism only refutes, and never puts forward, a substantive claim about anything, the ideology critic must maintain some criterion for distinguishing ideas which support relations of domination from those that do not, in virtue of her criticism of a particular set of ideas as “ideological”. The trouble for the ideology critic is that the sceptical methods she deploys undermine…Read more
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University of Fort HareDirector
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University of JohannesburgRegular Faculty
Areas of Specialization
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