Ubuntu is an African philosophical tradition that embodies the ability of one human being to empathize with another. It is the quintessence of African humanism, communalism, and belonging. As the late Archbishop Desmond Tutu anticipated, Ubuntu resonated with the moral intuition of the majority of black South Africans in the 1990s. As a result, it became the foundational ethical basis for articulating a new post-apartheid era of reconciliation and forgiveness in the face of a history marked b...

Philosophy is essentially historical. The element of wonder that drives philosophical inquiry, as well as the timeless nature of questions about humanity and the world, are both intertwined with their specific contexts of origin. The answers to these questions are historically situated interpretations of reality.Moreover, historicity itself is part of philosophical reflection. Any engagement with history (including this book) is inherently situated within a historical framework. A comprehensi...