Ubuntu as African Philosophy and the Ova Herero People (PDF)

Research Paper (undergraduate) from the year 2020 in the subject African Studies - Culture and Applied Geography, grade: 65.00, University of Namibia , course: Bachelor of Arts Honors, language: English, abstract: Western philosophers and anthropologists, for centuries argued that the African was inferior in intellect and was more inclined towards animal-like instincts. For example, Hegel said the African is devoid of consciousness or intellectual awareness and as result was sub-human or could not be said to exist in meaningful sense. This is recent history, which has been ground for both dehumanization of Africans in form of slavery, colonialism and dispossessing them of their land and cultural identity. Because the African is not fully developed and incapable of intellectual reflection, this would imply that the African probably cannot philosophize. Therefore, African philosophy cannot exist, in a true sense, except as a hybrid of western concepts simply contextualized for Africa. Therefore, the question of whether there is an African philosophy, should not only be taken for granted, because its subliminal implications carry far reaching consequences. It is an assumption that carries deep political, social, developmental effects regarding the humanity of an entire continent's people.

Given that background, initially I would like to conceptualize the notion of philosophy from a cultural perspective, re-conceptualize the notion of Ubuntu as a philosophy and further elaborate by application the concept of Ubuntu among the ovaHerero people, as evidence of the existence of African philosophy. It assumes that given the complexity of developing a culture, it cannot be unless such people engage higher thinking to be able to cultivate such a system of life. The Westerners have overlooked this form of intelligence and thinking, in search for mono-perspectivism and thinking that is grounded in Greek conceptualizations.