At present, the debate on global justice, a debate which is at the core of global ethics, is largely being conducted by European and American scholars from different disciplines without taking into account views and concepts from other regions of the world, particularly, from the Global South. The lack of a truly intercultural, interreligious, and international exchange of ideas provokes doubts whether the concepts of global justice introduced so far are able to transcend regional and cultural horizons. The article introduces (...) concepts of justice from African scholars, whose voices have remained marginal until now, like the Kenyan philosopher Henry Odera Oruka, the Ethiopian philosopher Teodros Kiros, and the debate on ubuntu, one of the most controversial concepts in southern Africa today. These concepts focus on issues that are seldom considered in the debate on global justice, such as the importance of bodily needs as a prerequisite for human beings to act as moral beings and the importance of human rel.. (shrink)

Based on the ideas of two main representatives of the academic discourse on Ubuntu, Michael O. Eze and Mogobe B. Ramose, the paper shows how the concept of Ubuntu can contribute to transcending conventional concepts of cosmopolitanism. Referring to the concept of Ubuntu, Ramose and Eze criticize ‘Western’ concepts of cosmopolitanism because they always seem to start from binary oppositions (‘I’ and ‘other’), which must be reconciled. ‘Western’ cosmopolitanism continues to build on boundaries (nations, cultures, etc.) that constitute communities and (...) exclude the ‘other’. Here the boundary remains a place of exclusion. Therefore, it is necessary to conceptualize categories such as ‘boundary’ and the ‘Other’ in a different way. Ubuntu as a concept where the human being is essentially a relational being (one who exists in and through relationships) seems to offer an alternative in the sense of a ‘critical’ (Mignolo, 2002a) or ‘emancipatory’ cosmopolitanism. (Pieterse, 2006; Ngcoya, 2015). (shrink)

Odera Oruka’s Sage philosophy project, his definition of philosophy, the method of interviewing sages, and the differentiation between folk and philosophic sages, have been discussed and criticised at length. Unfortunately, less known is Odera Oruka’s work on Ethics. This is especially regrettable, as his philosophical work had two main objectives:· The liberation of philosophy in Africa from ethnological and racist prejudices (Sage philosophy).· The reconstruction of the dimension of sagacity in philosophy which got lost in technical and analytic language during (...) the last decades. Philosophy becamea kind of expert knowledge with specialized terminology, thereby losing its holistic outlook and practical relevance.For Odera Oruka, who situates himself in the Socratic tradition of philosophy, philosophy is not a science in the ivory tower, but has to contribute to the bettermentof the life of the people - it has to be made practical. Philosophers have to deploy the results of their thinking to the well-being of their communities. This is what he considers, following Socrates, the sagacious dimension of philosophy.The aim of the present article is to highlight the ethical dimension of Odera Oruka's work, and to show the inseparable relationship of the Sage Philosophy project and his works on ethics, with a special focus on his concept of global justice. At the same time, the article attempts to show the relevance of Odera Oruka's work to the world philosophical discourse. (shrink)

Since the 1990s epistemic justice has been a central issue of post-colonial and feminist studies. But only during the last decade the term has become paradigmatic and new aspects of the issue have been addressed – particularly because of the works of De Sousa Santos and Fricker. One of the pioneers of an intercultural approach to philosophy is the German philosopher Heinz Kimmerle, who in the 1980s began to focus his research on African philosophies. Intercultural philosophy aimed for more epistemic (...) justice in the academy long before the term epistemic or cognitive injustice was coined and became a new paradigm in the social sciences and humanities. Kimmerle, for example, was one of the main proponents of a radical reform of the Eurocentric curricula in academic philosophy, and he called for the inclusion of philosophical traditions from various regions of the world. Similarities in the starting point of research and research questions in philosophy and post- or decolonial studies, and proposed solutions to epistemic injustice in these disciplines, give enough reason to combine the social sciences’ theories of epistemic justice with the methods of intercultural philosophy for a reciprocal cultural enrichment between these disciplines. This article shows that theories of ‘epistemic justice’ could benefit from Heinz Kimmerle’s method of dialogue and reflective listening. Similarly, insights derived from post-colonial, decolonial and feminist theory could strengthen an awareness of structural power inequalities in intercultural philosophy. Therefore, we explore how theories of epistemic justice and intercultural philosophy can complement each other. (shrink)