Jason van Niekerk | University of Pretoria (original) (raw)
My current research interests are philosophical accounts of ubuntu and African communitarianism generally, homophobia/heterosexism and claims about traditional African moral values, and a collaborative platform for archiving, developing, and sharing African Philosophy curricula (more on that latter soon).
Supervisors: Thaddeus Metz and Lucy Allais
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The Institute of Philosophy of the Russian Academy of Sciences
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Papers by Jason van Niekerk
Contemporary African philosophy ranges over a number of debates, positions, and theoretical tradi... more Contemporary African philosophy ranges over a number of debates, positions, and theoretical traditions. It can, however, be read as its own critical tradition of hard-won methodological refinements and substantive philosophical debates common to a body of philosophical work concerned with African philosophical resources elided by coloniality and postcoloniality. In this paper I argue for an account of Analytic philosophy as a style of philosophy, and trace a congruous approach in history of African philosophy, suggesting that these should not be characterised as antagonistic. I conclude by contrasting this style of philosophy with positions drawn from the work of Mogobe Ramose, arguing that the Analytic approach captures a set of questions worth pursuing in engagements with Ramose's work.
Reports by Jason van Niekerk
Dissertations by Jason van Niekerk
This thesis argues for a perfectionist account of the African communitarian philosophy ubuntu as ... more This thesis argues for a perfectionist account of the African communitarian philosophy ubuntu as the best account of ubuntu qua theory of moral value. Surveying extant work on ubuntu, it finds that most such work reproduces the ambiguities and difficulties of the fraught public discourse on ubuntu, or falls to fallacies characteristic of many African philosophical projects. It argues that the approach which most successfully avoids these difficulties, thus reflecting the concerns and critical methodologies developed over the recent history of African philosophy more broadly, is the Analytic approach exemplified by Thaddeus Metz' work. Metz makes explicit the constellation of value claims generally glossed as ubuntu, and proposes an attractive positive account, but does not account for the aretaic (or virtue-ethical) features integral to and attractive in most accounts of ubuntu.
Contemporary African philosophy ranges over a number of debates, positions, and theoretical tradi... more Contemporary African philosophy ranges over a number of debates, positions, and theoretical traditions. It can, however, be read as its own critical tradition of hard-won methodological refinements and substantive philosophical debates common to a body of philosophical work concerned with African philosophical resources elided by coloniality and postcoloniality. In this paper I argue for an account of Analytic philosophy as a style of philosophy, and trace a congruous approach in history of African philosophy, suggesting that these should not be characterised as antagonistic. I conclude by contrasting this style of philosophy with positions drawn from the work of Mogobe Ramose, arguing that the Analytic approach captures a set of questions worth pursuing in engagements with Ramose's work.
This thesis argues for a perfectionist account of the African communitarian philosophy ubuntu as ... more This thesis argues for a perfectionist account of the African communitarian philosophy ubuntu as the best account of ubuntu qua theory of moral value. Surveying extant work on ubuntu, it finds that most such work reproduces the ambiguities and difficulties of the fraught public discourse on ubuntu, or falls to fallacies characteristic of many African philosophical projects. It argues that the approach which most successfully avoids these difficulties, thus reflecting the concerns and critical methodologies developed over the recent history of African philosophy more broadly, is the Analytic approach exemplified by Thaddeus Metz' work. Metz makes explicit the constellation of value claims generally glossed as ubuntu, and proposes an attractive positive account, but does not account for the aretaic (or virtue-ethical) features integral to and attractive in most accounts of ubuntu.