Mogobe Bernard Ramose is a South African philosopher, one of the key thinkers to have popularized African philosophy, and specifically Ubuntu philosophy, internationally. [1] Ramose is Professor of Philosophy at the University of South Africa in Pretoria. [2]
Ramose obtained his PhD in Philosophy from the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (KUL), located in Belgium, in 1983. He didn't stop there, furthering his education by earning his MSc (Master of Science) in International Relations from the School of Economics and Political Science in London. [3] . Ramose was forced to spend a good fragment of his career exiled as a political refugee. During this time, he has held academic positions at numerous institutions. The universities are as followed: Tilburg University located in the Netherlands, Louvain University located in Belgium, the University of Zimbabwe, and Addis Ababa University located in Ethiopia. [3]
Ramose operated as a Researcher in the Center of Research into the Foundations of Law at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven. Ramose then started as a Senior Jacobsen Research Fellow at the University of Zimbabwe. Here, he taught African philosophy from the multiple perspectives he perceived on his own manner. Ramose also lectured Ethics in the Catholic sense, taken place in Chishawasha [4] . Mogobe then lectured "Philosophy of Law" at Tilburg University. In the former Venda University located in South Africa, he founded the Department of Philosophy. Later joining the University of South Africa, he functioned as the Head of the Department of Philosophy. In addition, he was also Head of the merged departments, Philosophy and Political Sciences. Further in his career, he was assigned founding director of the University of South Africa Regional Learning Center, located in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. [4]
In his essay 'The struggle for reason in Africa,' published in 1998, Ramose argued for the importance of opening up Western philosophy to the range of philosophical traditions originating outside of Europe. [5] Another notable work is African Philosophy through Ubuntu, published in 1999. [6] The book outlines how concepts such as justice and law can be understood through Ubuntu philosophy, and demonstrates how colonization and racism negate the shared humanity of colonizer and colonized. [7] In 2013, Ramose edited a collection of essays entitled Hegel's Twilight, which contrasts Hegel's view of Africa as a dark continent outside of history, [8] to the intercultural philosophy of Heinz Kimmerle. Succeeding, Ramose published a book called 'Contrasts and Contest About Philosophy' in 1999. Ramose's main focus for this publication is to question the justice of philosophy, by deciding if the formal meaning of philosophy should stay or change. [9]
Ramose published his own article titled, '"Brother", He Called Me'. Translated from Ubuntu, the article follows along Ramose as he was a political refugee in a wealthy country located in Northern Europe. Confused on who can be calling him "Brother" in such a space, he found out it was Paulin Hountondji. The article visualizes both African thinkers paving their way through the World Congress of Philosophy of the FISP, through hardships and battles from the European countries with dissimilar skin color. In addition, Ramose voices his opinion in the abstract, commenting on how the European countries claimed certain individuals were only human by appearance; and not by reality. [10] In 2010, Ramose published a book called, "The Death of Democracy and the Resurrection of Timocracy". Ramose explains how the ownership of wealth has been used as the determination of status in a society. He goes on to explain how this measurement of power has been revolutionized throughout the Western political philosophy. This left democracy only as a title, and translated to timocracy, or the rule by money. [11] Ramose explores the implications of the situation for standard education.
Furthermore, Ramose published an article in September 2018 titled, "Towards a post-conquest South Africa: Beyond the Constitution of 1996" . In this, Ramose's goal is to bring attention to the constitution of the Republic of South Africa, and the critiques it needs. More specifically, the critique involves particular attention to the practical exercise of the 'right of conquest' and its consequences. [12] Ramose believes that the many injustices caused by the conquest of the unjust war still need to be addressed. This stays true even though the new constitution was put in place. [12]
Mogobe Ramose's work has been influenced by the political thinking of South African dissident and founder of the Pan Africanist Congress Robert Sobukwe. [13] Ramose has contributed to pan-Africanist thinking and activism, popularized African philosophy, and repeatedly critiqued the persisting view that rationality is the exclusive purview of Western philosophy. [14] He has supervised and influenced a number of students including Masilo Lepuru, Joel Modiri and Ndumiso Dladla.
Ramose stands by a theory called the "Just War" theory, which was pulled by a fellow philosopher, Thomas Aquinas. He labels this theory to have two components; first being the actual permission to be war itself and the second regulates the war itself when it has actually begun. [15] Ramose takes his analysis stand with influence from fellow thinker, Martin Heidegger. Heidegger disclaimed that "German-speaking people" live by a certain moral belief just because of their language. Relating, Ubuntu was held to a standard that its values come from the features of the language. After Heidegger's disclaimer, that reputation of Ubuntu wasn't as convincing anymore. [16]
In an interview with Ramose, it goes over his depiction of the purpose of pan-African education. It begins with regards to Ramose stating how engaging with him is to understand there is no swift fix to the educational system challenges in Africa. Ramose challenges the foundations of these systems and works to call them out. [17] Ramose makes the connection between the word "Education" and its Latin root, 'educere', meaning to "lead out of". The history of education in Africa, from the colonization point of view, was seen to lead the conquered Africans into epistemic slavery. [17] Ramose believes that education must have ethics at the forefront. Ramose states how this economic bondage went side by side with the permission of independence to Africa. He voices the colonizer's objective, being that Africa will be free only politically, but not economically. [17]
Ubuntu prompts a major role in Ramose's African Philosophy definition. Ubuntu demonstrates African rationality, confirming the genuine African identity was suppressed systematically during the colonial past. [18] Ramose had a philosophical agenda that consisted of two heavy elements: reconstruction of the African worldview and the demolition of the Western supremacy. Ramose wants these traditions to serve as a source of reconstruction to the view of Africa, that he hopes can spread to the rest of the world. Ramose believes that Western philosophy is permeated with racism. The old teaching that fueled his thoughts were from Aristotle, an ancient Greek philosopher. Aristotle formed an idea of the average "man" as a "rational animal" [18] , which painted Europeans as the only viable humans. This old belief was recycled to justify colonial slavery in the early modern period.
The philosophers of this Enlightenment wanted to further extend this idea of a man, but Ramose argues that the Enlightenment philosophers only had Western Europeans in mind. [18] Due to the lack of rational capacities, Australians, indigenous Africans, and Americans were branded sub-human. This acted as the justification for slavery and colonialism. Ramose believed that the Western philosophy played a critical role in colonial oppression. Ramose thought that the European colonization's purpose was to establish and maintain in all colonial parts of the world, demonstrating their conception of knowledge, truth, and reality. Even after the abolition of slavery happened, philosophical racism continued to exist and have a dehumanizing effect. The majority of the colonized still lived under the burden of "man being a rational animal". The prejudice thought that Africa is incapable of fabricating knowledge was still alive, implicating the idea of African philosophy to be inconceivable. Ramose describes this as 'Epistemicide' [18] , the killing of knowledge systems.
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