Kai Horsthemke

Can ubuntu provide a model for citizenship education in African democracies

Some proponents of Africanism argue that African traditional education and the principles of ubuntu should provide the framework for citizenship education. While conceding that understandable concerns lie behind defences of ubuntu as underpinning African democracy, we argue that the Africanist perspective faces various problems and makes substantial errors: political, moral, epistemic and educational. While democracy and democratic citizenship necessarily involve sensitivity to local context, their fundamental principles and tenets are universal. Failure to acknowledge this comes at a substantial price. Taking as its initial focus an analysis and critical evaluation of Malegapuru William Makgobas critique of liberal democracy, the paper questions the purported uniqueness of ubuntu and its value and efficiency as a practical guide to action and policy, as well as its capacity to indicate how conflict between its associate principles and values might be resolved, insofar as these principles and values are indeed morally worthy.

Rethinking humane education

The increase in violence in South African schools, as elsewhere, has been associated with a general ‘decline in moral values’. There have been three different responses that emphasise the decline in religious teaching at schools, the loss of traditional values like ubuntu, communalism and the like; and humankinds increasing alienation from nature. In other words, in terms of teaching and learning initiatives, we should turn to religion, community and the common good and nature (the natural environment and nonhuman animals) in order to feel the force of morality and, consequently, to counteract human violence and cruelty. After critically examining these responses, the present article focusses on the third as the most promising, albeit one that is in need of re-conceptualisation. We need to teach not as if nature mattered but that it matters. Concepts and principles like justice, equality and rights have worked in the past. They have been useful in governing and regulating relations between human individuals. Indeed, it is the recognition of and respect for rights that best exemplifies the transculturality of values. Taking these concepts and principles seriously requires extending and employing them beyond the human realm. This may well be the most reliable way of halting the rapid deterioration of the world. Humane education, insofar as it incorporates guidance in moral reasoning and critical thinking – over and above nurture of appropriate feelings in individuals – and engages both rationality and individual responsibility, consists of transmission as well as in transcendence of our moral and cultural heritage. ‘Decline in moral values’, then, is counteracted by an approach that combines caring with respect for rights, in order to contribute towards erasing what has been called ‘the ultimate evil’, namely human violence and abuse. Environmental education and humane education, so re-conceived, arguably have long-term benefits for both humans and nonhumans.

Rethinking the ‘Western Tradition’

Abstract In recent years, the ‘Western tradition’ has increasingly come under attack in anti-colonialist and postmodernist discourses. It is not difficult to sympathise with the concerns that underlie advocacy of historically marginalised traditions, and the West undoubtedly has a lot to answer for. Nonetheless, while arguing a qualified yes to the central question posed for this special issue, we question the assumption that the West can be neatly distinguished from alternative traditions of thought. We argue that there is fundamental implicit and explicit agreement across traditions about the most difficult of issues and on standards about how to reason about them and that the ‘West’ has demonstrably learned from within and without itself. But, we question the very viability under conditions of heightened globalisation and neo-colonialism of distinguishing between thought of the ‘West’ and thought outside the West. It is time to move beyond the reified assumptions that underlie the idea of ‘Western thought’, cast as an agent with a collective purpose.

The South African Higher Education Transformation Debate: Culture, Identity and "African Ways of Knowing".

Following the first democratic election in South Africa in 1994, there has been a strong drive towards democratising education at all levels, primary, secondary and tertiary. The present paper examines some of the key ideas in the debate around transformation in higher education in South Africa, namely the notions of an African essence, culture and identity, as well as African knowledge systems. It contends that neither the idea of the ‘essence of Africa’ nor an emphasis on ‘African culture and identity’ constitutes an appropriate theoretical framework for conceptualising change in higher educational thought and practice in South Africa, the major problems turning on issues around essentialism and cultural relativism. Similarly, the post-colonialist and anti-discrimination discourse underpinning ‘African ways of knowing’ is unfortunately riddled with problems, logical and epistemological. While the present contribution is sympathetic to the basic concerns articulated in the respective debates, especially around the significance of indigenous languages, it offers both conceptual clarification as well as a critical (re-)evaluation of the pertinent issues. Thus, ‘African knowledge’ is argued to be a misnomer that raises more problems than it can conceivably solve. What its proponents hope to achieve is arguably better achieved by an emphasis on restorative justice that locates the principle of reconciliation within a basic framework of human rights.

‘#FactsMustFall’? – education in a post-truth, post-truthful world

Abstract Taking its inspiration from the name of the recent ‘#FeesMustFall’ movement on South African university campuses, this paper takes stock of the apparent disrepute into which truth, facts and also rationality have fallen in recent times. In the post-truth world, the blurring of borders between truth and deception, truthfulness and dishonesty, and non-fiction and fiction has become a habit – and also an educational challenge. I argue that truth matters, in education as elsewhere, and in ways not often acknowledged by constructivist, postmodernist and postcolonialist positions.

African Philosophy of Education

Education in Africa, like virtually all social interaction, was traditionally characterized by the bounds and bonds of small-scale ethnic communities. Despite their diversity and remoteness, and the sheer geographic distances between these groups, they are seen to share not only the experience of colonization but also (pre-dating this experience) certain common educational concepts, principles and values. African philosophy of education is, in some important way, contingent on African philosophy. While existence of the latter is guaranteed by manifestations of the former, the possibility and plausibility of African philosophy does not necessarily imply the same for African philosophy of education. At the heart of these considerations resides the question whether there is a (set of) perspective(s), a body of thought, and/ or a particular way of ‘doing’ philosophy of education, that can be called ‘African’. There are arguably two initial ways of approaching this issue: • Are there uniquely and distinctly African ways of philosophizing about education? • Are the component concepts, principles and values of this philosophy sound? Whether or not satisfactory answers to these questions are forthcoming, the possibility and plausibility of African philosophy of education might nonetheless be established in terms of its priorities. Given the different historical, geographical, cultural and social contexts of Africans and education in Africa, it is reasonable to assume that philosophical priorities differ in accordance with these.

Animals and the Law in East, West and Southern Africa

The London Convention for the Protection of Wild Animals, Birds and Fish in Africa is one of the earliest animal protection treaties in Africa. It was signed in 1900 by the European colonial powers with the intention of protecting African ‘game’ species, particularly the African elephant, from uncontrolled massacre, to safeguard the conservation of diverse wild animals and, for example, to limit the export of ivory.1 Tellingly, African states began responding to the need to conserve biodiversity more than a half century later, in the 1960s — which was the time when most African countries gained independence from European colonising nations. While this appears to suggest that ‘the fledgling environmental legislation was not Western, but the rational choice of African leaders to put in place legislation that would protect the delicate, newly decolonised natural resources’ and therefore ‘a uniquely African high-level environmental ethic’ (Peterson 2013: 113), the counterargument is that the newly independent governments put in place legislation for the protection of the environment only ‘because of the influence of the colonial legacy of legislation, and lasting colonial influence that, for many nations, took decades to decouple’ (113n166). Nonetheless, it is evident that when African countries gained political independence from European colonial control, ‘Africans negotiated, signed, and ratified [Africa-wide] treaties in a unified show of concern for the future of the natural environment’ and ‘engaged in robust environmental agreements’ (114).

Vorleben: educational practice beyond prescription

Within a post‐apartheid educational ethos that emphasizes multiculturalism and interculturalism, there is a growing sense in South Africa that prescriptivism is to be avoided. However, the perception of the teacher as moral exemplar entails an interesting ambivalence: the teacher as champion of tolerance, as facilitator but not prescriber of views, values, and behaviour, whose ‘comportment’ nonetheless encompasses the idea of an ethical identity as well as more technical aspects of intellectual virtue. Does the (German) notion of vorleben—‘to live (one’s life) as an example or guide’; ‘to exemplify (good) practice’—illuminate an understanding of a teacher/facilitator professional identity in the South African post‐apartheid context? This study analyses this idea and its intersections and dissonances with role‐modelling, modelling and practice, humanistic education, African traditional education and ubuntu, the African principle of human interdependence. Vorleben is argued to be able to enhance our understanding of the duties and obligations of the professional educator.

Epistemic empathy in childrearing and education

The question, what is it like to be a child?, is one that most of us, in our capacity as parents and/or educators, have probably asked ourselves already at some point. Perhaps one might go further and suggest that it is a question we ought to ask (or have asked) ourselves, insofar as the attempt to provide a meaningful response has a significant bearing on childrearing and education. It is a question that presumably frames the processes of cognitive and moral education – i.e. showing respect for the childs point of view and inducting the child into respecting the points of view of others. After briefly discussing the idea of empathy and relating it to ideas such as sympathy or compassion, this paper focuses on epistemic empathy in particular. The relevant characteristics in this regard are knowledge of anothers internal state, including her thoughts and feelings; understanding how another is thinking and feeling and imagining how one would think and feel in the others place. Regarding childrearing and education, the two central questions that concern us here are: what is the role of epistemic empathy in our dealings with our children, learners and students and how can we ensure that they become empathic individuals themselves? In other words, (how) can empathy be taught and learned? After examining several recommendations regarding the nurturing and development of epistemic empathy (exemplification, modelling, acquisition of poetic and general aesthetic skills, and sensitivity, induction, imitation, etc.), I pay closer attention to the idea of modelling epistemic empathy. I conclude the paper with a few thoughts about limits to epistemic empathy.

‘On Bullshit’ and ‘Mindfucking’: an essay on mental manipulation in education

In 2005 and 2008, respectively, two books by well-established and -respected analytical philosophers caused some controversy, not only because of their provocative and eye-catching titles but also because of the sheer brevity of the essays they contained. Harry Frankfurts book, which analysed the prevalence of ‘bullshit’ in contemporary society, was generally lauded for elevating a slang term to a new epistemological category, despite some peoples understandable unease with the authors opportunist focus on a popular obscenity. Critics were generally less kind with regard to Colin McGinns book, pointing out that his analysis adds little, if anything, to the general understanding of mental manipulation, and that he has little to say about the factors that influence the frequency with which mindfucking occurs in contemporary society. After arguing that mindfucking is a special kind of psychological manipulation (and crucially distinct from indoctrination and brainwashing), the present paper investigates the possible educational significance and application of these two notions. It pays special attention to the factors affecting the frequency and magnitude with which bullshit and mindfucking occur in contemporary society, not only in our culture but in other cultures too.