Africans achieve full personhood only through a long social birth process
Evidence
The concept is ubuntu, in the Nguni languages — botho in Tswana, umuntu in Zulu, vumunhu in Tsonga. The South African scholar and theologian Desmond Tutu, in No Future Without Forgiveness (1999), articulated it in the phrase that became globally known after the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission: umuntu ngumuntu ngabantu — a person is a person through other persons. — , The Rod and the Child, 4252 (
#expands, via linked claim)
The State, though later in time than the family, is prior to it, and even to the individual, by nature; for ‘what each thing is when fully developed we call its nature’, and human society, fully developed, is a State, and the whole is prior to the part. … In like manner an individual cannot fulfil his purpose unless he is part of a State. — Bertrand Russell, History of Western Philosophy, 802 (
#expands, via linked claim)
Categorization
- XREF: connects to: The state precedes the individual because humans achieve their full purpose only within society — Bertrand Russell, History of Western Philosophy, 802; African thought defines the human person as a relation to others, world, and God.; Ubuntu personhood defines the self only through communal relation — , The Rod and the Child: A Global History…, 4252
Related
- Ubuntu personhood defines the self only through communal relation (similarity 0.87)
- African thought defines the human person as a relation to others, world, and God. (similarity 0.80)
- Bantu personhood rejects Cartesian cogito in favor of relational compassion (similarity 0.80)
Broader Connections
- Ubuntu personhood defines the self only through communal relation
#expands(0.75) — , The Rod and the Child, 4252 - The state precedes the individual because humans achieve their full purpose only within society
#expands(0.70) — Bertrand Russell, History of Western Philosophy, 802 - African thought defines the human person as a relation to others, world, and God.
#corroborates(0.70)