•  2
    A Post-Colonial Reconstruction of Africa surveys the significant reconstruction work undertaken in the social and political organization of sub-Saharan African society in the decades following the colonial interruption and subjects these efforts to rigorous criticism in order to establish whether they can carry the weight of modernization efforts in Africa. To examine the significant trends, it highlights the work of African intellectuals such as Kwasi Wiredu, Kwame Gyekye, Paulin Hountondji, Kw…Read more
  •  342
    I examine Dr. van den Berg’s review article of ‘’Philosophy from Africa –a text with readings’’, with a view to setting aside the false allegation concerning the racist intentions of the editors.
  •  20
    The African Philosophy Reader: A text with readings 2nd Edition (edited book)
    with A. P. J. Roux
    Routledge. 2003.
    Africa is reconstituting its post-colonial character; much of its moral, political, and social thought is concerned with the turbulent process of embracing its modern identity while protecting its ancient cultures. Reflecting this process, this new edition of 'The African Philosophy reader' also addresses provocative ideas about gender and race in Africa: When was the African woman 'invented'? What is the political morality of race? Africa's place in the global context, and the much publicized '…Read more
  •  153
    Philosophy from Africa: A text with readings 2nd Edition (edited book)
    with A. P. J. Roux
    Oxford University Press. 2003.
    This considerably revised second edition of 'Philosophy from Africa' presents the current philosophical debate in Africa to a diverse, multicultural world. Its major themes include decolonization, Afro-centrism vs. Euro-centrism, the struggle for cultural freedoms on the continent, and the historic role of Black Consciousness in the African liberation struggle. Writers and thinkers, Steve Biko, Kwasi Wiredu, Abiola Irele, Mogobe Ramose, Ngugi Wa Thiong'o and Wole Soyinka, among others, explore …Read more
  •  225
    The African Philosophy Reader: a text with readings (edited book)
    with A. P. J. Roux
    Routledge. 1998.
    Divided into eight sections, each with introductory essays, the selections offer rich and detailed insights into a diverse multinational philosophical landscape. Revealed in this pathbreaking work is the way in which traditional philosophical issues related to ethics, metaphysics, and epistemology, for instance, take on specific forms in Africa's postcolonial struggles. Much of its moral, political, and social philosophy is concerned with the turbulent processes of embracing modern identities wh…Read more
  •  409
    Philosophy from Africa: a text with readings (edited book)
    with A. P. J. Roux
    International Thomson Publishing ITP. 1998.
    From early sage philosophers to Leopold Senghor of Senegal and Steve Biko of South Africa, African thinking has challenged the way we think. As we enter a new millenium, the perspectives provided in this volume offer wise and refreshing alternatives to problems of self and society, culture, aesthetics, metaphysics and religion. Out of Africa always something new, and in these pages contemporary problems of cross-cultural cognition and post-coloniality are not only addressed, but also enacted. T…Read more
  • Principles and virtues - or - principles or virtues?
    South African Journal of Philosophy 4 25-28. 1985.
  •  20
    Complex equality - some notes on redistribution in South Africa
    Koers: Bulletin for Christian Scholarship 64 (1): 41-64. 1999.
    In this article I attempt to show that a theory of redistribution can be derived from Walzer’s political theory as presented in his Spheres of justice. I argue that this theory shows in which areas of South Africa’s public life redistribution is required, and which patterns of redistribution should be followed. Walzer’s political theory leans heavily on the notion of shared understandings. In South Africa there are many areas of public life in which interpretations of these understandings are in…Read more
  •  20
    Ludin’s ‘’Kopftuch’’: a problem of religious freedom in German schools
    with A. P. J. Roux
    Koers: Bulletin for Christian Scholarship 693 (2): 277-315. 2004.
    Fereshta Ludin is a German citizen and devout “Muslimin”. She has been denied leave to wear her “Kopftuch” in the classroom. She has lost her case in the courtrooms of the states where appeals were lodged to lift the ban. She may consequently not teach in any public school in Germany. We argue that Ludin is entitled to wear the “Kopftuch” on grounds of her right to religious freedom and that the attempt to deny her this entitlement constitutes a breach of individual rights. Following the South A…Read more
  •  29
    Uncovering rationality - a perspective in African thought
    South African Journal of Ethnology 23 (1/2): 63-82. 2000.
    The reigning, disjunctive view of cultural relations holds that one either belongs to culture A or B. The alternative conjunctive view argues that the world contains many cultures and people inhabit the world within and between some, many or all of these actual cultures. The conjunctural point of view posits a historically derived shared core of transcultural meanings and denies that the elements of a people's tradition are all autochthonous in their genesis. A coherent conjunctural reading of c…Read more
  •  3
    In this paper African ideas of the communitarian self, presented in the work of Kwame Gyekye and Kwasi Wiredu among others, are examined with a view to tracing their implications for communitarian ethics.
  •  37
    Culture in retrospect: Festschrift in honor of E. D. Prinsloo (edited book)
    with A. P. J. Roux
    Unisa Press. 2001.
    In the past, African philosophy did not really form part of the philosophical scene in South Africa. It had no place on the programmes of the South African Philosophical Society and no articles on it were published in the South African Journal of Philosophy. However, it became clear to Prof. Prinsloo and the members of his Department of Philosophy at the University of South Africa that this situation was untenable. The department accepted the task as a departmental research project of finding …Read more
  •  13
    Later Marxist morality – its relevance for Africa’s post-colonial situation
    Koers: Bulletin for Christian Scholarship 66 (4): 621-637. 2001.
    Marx’s polemic against exploitation focuses centrally on the idea that capitalism not only betrays the inviolability of the human individual, but also prevents the realization of man’s true nature as “species-being” and the realization of the kind of community appropriate to this nature, thus preventing the freeing of human potential from the structural force of capital. I examine this polemic with reference to the views of African philosophers (Hountondji and others) on Africa’s exposure to neo…Read more
  •  9
    Against liberal pluralist political practice in South Africa
    Koers; Bulletin for Christian Scholarship 62 (4): 383-406. 1997.
    In this article I take issue with liberal pluralist political practice in South Africa. Multicultural civil society requires the recognition of cultural categories which modernity, in the shape of liberal pluralism, cannot accommodate and therefore ignore in the interests of fostering a single mono-cultural politics. In South Africa this trend has taken the usual route of difference-blind, assimilationist political programmes aimed at nation building (under the slogan “one people – one nation”…Read more
  •  37
    A Note on Eze
    Philosophical Papers 30 (3): 223-225. 2001.
    Bernasconi has famously remarked that Analytic Philosophy cannot possibly acknowledge the existence of a regional philosophy without relinquishing some of its pretensions to universality. Practitioners of PHILOSOPHY claim to be defining the universal horizon of humanity - a claim generating hegemonic structures. Either (it is claimed) African Philosophy is so similar to PHILOSOPHY that it effectively disappears into PHILOSOPHY, or it is so dissimilar that it ceases to be PHILOSOPHY. Either way t…Read more
  •  35
    Particularity in morality and its relation to community
    In P. H. Coetzee & A. P. J. Roux (eds.), Philosophy from Africa: a text with readings, Oxford University Press. pp. 273-286. 2003.
    In this paper I attempt to show how the African philosopher - Kwasi Wiredu - constructs an ethnic perspectival model of ethics from the structure of kinship relations found among the Akans of Ghana. The specifics of this structure generate a notion of particularity in morals, which is carried from its origins in civic society, through a process of contested dialogue, into civil society where it is validated as norm-setter in an actual public forum of debate. The dynamics of this forum ensures th…Read more
  •  18
    Metanationality, comprehensive democracy and left communitarian rights
    Koers; Bulletin for Christian Scholarship 65 (1): 45-76. 2000.
    The Ghanaian philosopher, Kwame Gyekye, defends a concept of metanationality (a nationality transcending specific ethnic groups, yet accommodating them all on a basis of equality), which he regards as eminently suitable for application in multicultural societies. Metanationality distinguishes between first and second tier solidarity. Second tier solidarity entails commitment to the democratic institutions of the state and a system of rights to which individuals bear title. These rights include s…Read more
  •  8
    A Marxist interpretation of Black attempts at political self- definition in South Africa
    Koers: Bulletin for Christian Scholarship 62 (4): 423-446. 1997.
    In this article I address the problem of political self-definition in South Africa. I attempt to trace and explain the rise of political consciousness among the Black people of South Africa. I show that the rise of political consciousness was expressed in a Marxist attempt at political self-definition. This attempt has conceptual connections with communitarian politics, which explains why it was so easily accepted by black people. Black Consciousness made room for a wider political consciousness…Read more
  •  53
    Kwame Anthony Appiah—The Triumph of Liberalism
    Philosophical Papers 30 (3): 261-287. 2001.
    Kwame Anthony Appiah has devoted much scholarly work to exploring the problems surrounding racial and cultural identities in the USA. He defends the position that such identities need not be centrally significant in the psyche of the subject, and that black demands for blacks to be recognised as having a black (race) identity, is symptomatic of black racism. Like other racisms, black racism has a tendency to go imperial, affecting the autonomy of the individual to decide which identity construct…Read more
  •  58
    The liberal constitution in South Africa, which entrenches a certain kind of socio-economic organisation, renders systems of socio-economic organisation traditional to Africa, dysfunctional. These traditional communitarian systems contain within themselves structures endorsing harmony, mutuality and reciprocity as ground rules or values which distribute significant resources (both material and moral) to all agents in accordance with their socially determined deserts. The absence of these structu…Read more