African Philosophy through Ubuntu

A systematic study by a South African philosopher who presents ubuntu as the root of African philosophy among Bantu-speaking peoples. Ramose begins by defending the existence of African philosophy against those who deny it. He then analyses the word ubuntu: the prefix ubu- points to being in general, still enfolded, and the stem -ntu to its concrete unfolding in a person. He writes be-ing with a hyphen to show that being is never static but always in motion, a whole in which everything is connected. From this ontology comes an ethics summed up in the saying umuntu ngumuntu ngabantu, a person is a person through other persons: one becomes human by recognising the humanity of others. The community includes the living, the living-dead and the yet-to-be-born. Ramose then applies ubuntu to religion, healing and medicine, law, politics, where he prefers consensus to adversarial decision-making, and ecology.

It is the most developed philosophical account of ubuntu, a concept now cited in law, politics and ethics far beyond South Africa, and it shows how an ontology can ground an ethics.