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10Venturing into the Uncharted World of Aesthetics (edited book)Cambridge Scholars Publishing. 2023.The world of aesthetics is, itself, inextricable from the world as a whole. Indeed, as this book argues, it is among its essential features, and an invaluable key to its appreciation. Thus, to venture into the uncharted world of aesthetics is also to venture into this larger world, a world that might be called the "cosmos" or the "universe". At the same time, to venture into this uncharted realm is to also blaze a trail to the self. This trail would, itself, be paradoxical, as it would end where…Read more
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9The Question of an African Jurisprudence: Some Hermeneutic ReflectionsIn Kwasi Wiredu (ed.), A Companion to African Philosophy, Wiley-blackwell. 2004.
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6African Philosophical AdventuresLexington Books. 2023.African Philosophical Adventures calls for a recognition and affirmation of African philosophy as an adventure. This understanding fosters and cultivates inquisitive open-mindedness and is animated by wonder.
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3African Philosophical IlluminationsImprint: Springer. 2017.The illumination of African philosophy offered in this volume leads to the illumination of philosophy in general. Illuminating arises as an essential task of philosophy, whether African or not. What is illuminated is not already there, but is constituted at the moment of illumination. This book invites the reader to participate in the illuminating work of philosophy and necessarily, thereby, to contribute to his or her own self-constituting self-illumination. Although the focus is on African phi…Read more
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4Africanizing African Legal EthicsRoutledge. 2019.This book is a philosophical inquiry into indigenous African legal ethics, asking what is African about African legal ethics? Taking us beyond a geographical understanding of Africa, the author argues for an African legal ethics that is distinct from non-African African legal ethics which are rooted in Euro-Western constructions. De-silencing African voices on African legal ethics this book decolonizes the prevailing wisdom on legal ethics and broadens our understanding of how law in Africa bear…Read more
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9African Philosophical CurrentsRoutledge. 2018.The history of the human world has reached a stage where no philosophical community can any longer philosophize in isolation from other philosophical communities. The African philosophical community is not an exception and neither is any other philosophical community. There is a widespread notion in the West that philosophy originated in Greece and found its way throughout Europe, from where it migrated to Africa. This book argues that Philosophy did not migrate to African from anywhere but that…Read more
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5A Phenomenological Visit to a Japanese Rock GardenIn John Murungi & Linda Ardito (eds.), Home - Lived Experiences: Philosophical Reflections, Springer Verlag. pp. 57-67. 2021.A Japanese rock garden is open to visitors, speaking to each in a language he or she can understand. As such, it is a site of languages—that is, a site that is open to the languages of each and every visitor. Thus, it is also a site that may be said to speak the language of each and every visitor. To speak to each visitor in his or her own language, it also may be said to carry the potential to speak any of these languages. As such, it is a place of memory. It is also a place pregnant with unbor…Read more
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14Home - Lived Experiences: Philosophical Reflections (edited book)Springer Verlag. 2021.This book explores the lived experience of being at home as well as being homeless. Being at home or not is typically a matter of being at a place or not, where such a place is carved out of space and designated as such. It is a place that is both empirical and trans-empirical. When one is at home or not at home, one typically has in mind an inhabited place. To inhabit or not to inhabit it is to find oneself in a place that has an affective presence or absence. In either case, affectivity points…Read more
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Two Views of History: A Study of the Relation of European and African CultureDissertation, The Pennsylvania State University. 1970.
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63Towards an Understanding of African ArtDiogenes 30 (119): 114-131. 1982.In the introduction to his book, African Art, Pierre Meauze refers to carving as a dialogue between man and matter. He does not specify what he means by this statement but if it is his intention to let African sculpture speak for itself he is to be credited for his accomplishment, for the book contains beautiful pictures of some of the most well known pieces of African sculpture. However, as the following inquiry seeks to indicate, it is not possible to fully understand the sense in which carvin…Read more
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7Earth Ways: Framing Geographical Meanings (edited book)Lexington Books. 2004.How do you connect the discipline of anthropology to both philosophy and geography? What about history, sociology, and other applied and theoretical forms of knowledge? In Earth Ways: Framing Geographical Meanings, Gary Backhaus and John Murungi challenge contributors to find the organizing component, or "framings," that enables them to bridge their own work to philosophy and geography. What emerges are truly creative contributions to interdisciplinary thought.
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6Colonial and Global Interfacings: Imperial Hegemonies and Democratizing Resistances (edited book)Cambridge Scholars Press. 2007.Contains studies that investigate the manner in which historical colonializing projects rested upon globalizing meta-narratives: theodicies and economic justifications. This title also includes case studies of specific interfacing sites: Singapore, South Africa, and Micronesia.
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5Tensional Landscapes: The Dynamics of Boundaries and Placements (edited book)Lexington Books. 2003.The contributors to this volume address global, regional, and local landscapes, cosmopolitan and indigenous cultures, and human and more-than-human ecology as they work to reveal place-specific tensional dynamics. This unusual book, which covers a wide-ranging array of topics, coheres into a work that will be a valuable reference for scholars of geography and the philosophy of place.
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43An Introduction to African Legal PhilosophyLexington Books. 2013.This is an introductory book on African legal philosophy. The book claims that African legal philosophy exists and is intelligible in the context of African culture, just as every other legal philosophy has its cultural foundation. What law is, how it is thought, how it is interpreted, and how it is applied takes place with thing the parameters of African culture. At a time when the imposition of Western culture on Africans has to be reckoned with, African legal philosophy is, in part, a respons…Read more
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4Dangers in the Incommensurability of Globalization: Socio-Political Volatilities (edited book)Cambridge Scholars Press. 2008.The thesis of incommensurability concerns the interrelation between subjective culture and objective culture through which the constitutive agency of chaos (incommensurability) emerges. The objectivations/products, the constituents of objective culture, carry their own Being, and this Being transcends the original subjective expressivities/intentions. The constitutive agency of this incommensurable interrelation becomes apparent in an age of globalization where its effects become global, bringin…Read more
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9Transformations of Urban and Suburban Landscapes: Perspectives From Philosophy, Geography, and Architecture (edited book)Lexington Books. 2002.The study of landscape and place has become an increasingly fertile realm of inquiry in the humanities and social sciences. In this new book of essays, selected from presentations at the first annual meeting of the Society for Philosophy and Geography, scholars investigate the experiences and meanings that inscribe urban and suburban landscapes. Gary Backhaus and John Murungi bring philosophy and geography into a dialogue with a host of other disciplines to explore a fundamental dialectic: while…Read more
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44Toward an African Conception of TimeInternational Philosophical Quarterly 20 (4): 407-416. 1980.
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