I respond to Jonathan Chimakonam’s paper in which he presents an approach to dialogue in philosophical space, and raises questions about my own approach. I raise four questions to his understanding of conversation. First, I ask him for more details on his conception of conversation. Second, what happens if not everyone cares to enter into conversation? Third, is conversation a prerequisite to philosophy, or a part of philosophy? And fourth, how does wonder fit into conversation in and about place?

Philosophical counselling is typically conceptualised as a praxis going beyond academic and theoretical philosophy. However, two problems soon follow, namely the lack of agreed-upon methods and a substantial neglect of different philosophical traditions informing its practice. In this article, I propose reconceptualising philosophical counselling as a distinct method through which academic philosophy can be practised. This allows me to introduce an understanding of African philosophy, inspired by African philosophers Chimakonam and Serequeberhan, that might encourage the philosophical counsellor to render academic (...) philosophy more applicable to the counselee. Moreover, it allows for embodied voices talking from an embedded African lifeworld to create new and more relevant concepts that emerge from that lifeworld. (shrink)

Recently there has been a strong movement towards reflections about the “geography of reason,” especially among philosophers who deal with postcolonial thinking. There is also a renewed interest among different schools of thought, both analytical and continental, in the ways our “life world,” or “embodiment,” or “situated cognition,” shape our minds and eventually the philosophy we do. As a result, we have seen some recent publications on the nature and import of the concept of “place” by authors such as Edward (...) Casey, Jeff Malpas, and Bruce Janz. In Philosophy in an African place, Bruce Janz introduces the concept of “philosophy-in-place” with the question as to what it is to do philosophy in a particular context of lived experience or, more specifically, what it is to do philosophy in an African place. This paper expands on Janz's “philosophy-in-place” by developing what will be called a “philosophy through place.” It starts with Janz's discussion of the problem of placing philosophy and a philosophy-in-place. Then it attempts to develop an argument for a “philosophy through place” and its implications for considering the place of philosophy in Africa and the challenge it poses to philosophy. (shrink)

The paper examines the evolution of Marek Siemek’s “dialogical principle.” The early version of this principle, sketched in the essay “Dialogue and Its Myth”, meets several criteria of the phenomenology of dialogue and even hermeneutics. However, Siemek has continued to change his concept of dialogue over the decades. In his recent book, Freedom, Reason, Intersubjectivity, he explores transcendental preconditions of free and reasonable activism, i.e., the Fichtean “limitative synthesis” of I and Non-I and its applications in social interrelations. He no (...) longer considers the empirical, anthropological, and phenomenological aspects of dialogics and mutual recognition. He also replaces mutuality with reciprocity, asymmetry with symmetry, and phenomenology with transcendentalism. (shrink)

ABSTRACT While there is no proof that there are distinct races among humans, racial divisions remain alive and relevant. Discrimination feeds into racism and sponsors beliefs in differences among races. Race as a social issue and a topic of analysis is generally treated as if it were a concept that could be understood on its own terms and independently of some other issues. One of the most promising attempts at understanding race is its relation to perceptible differences between and among (...) races. These differences have played out in numerous ways, including how philosophy has been used as a tool of exclusion. This exclusion necessitated the rise of African philosophy as an extension of the combat against racism. Yet racists and racist attitudes remain prevalent. While African philosophy’s emergence can be articulated in terms of race and racism, what is more difficult to articulate is why racist attitudes persist. In tracing the pervasiveness of race and racism in African philosophy’s emergence as a counter to Western views, I demonstrate how African philosophy could not avoid being implicated in the struggle against racism. As a representative of African thought systems, African philosophy had to define itself in contrast to Western philosophy to show the viability of the African thought processes. However, African philosophy neither ended racism nor caused African thought systems to be treated as equals to their Western rivals. On the contrary, racist thinking and practices remain rife. Hence, I attempt to show that the sponsors of these attitudes are insistent on making prominent, perceptible differences between humans. (shrink)