Bantu personhood rejects Cartesian cogito in favor of relational compassion

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 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

The foundation of this view is that an individual person’s identity is constituted by her fellows in community. The purpose of this view is mainly stated in contrast to what is assumed to be the standard Western Cartesian location of an individual’s identity in the “I”. The African view contrasts the “I” emphasis, with a collectivist view of the “We” as foundational to the definition of the individual. In African philosophy, this view has come to be known as the communitarian view of personhood, and among its fierce proponents are the theologian John Mbiti (1970) and the philosopher Ifeanyi Menkiti (1984). — Frans Dokman, Beyond Bantu Philosophy_…, 434 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

This philosophy is ontology of vital forces. In the history of Western philosophy, starting from the Pre-Socratic philosophers, the nature of reality has been described in terms of a static conception of being, by the use of set phrases such as “the reality that is,” “anything that exists,” or “what is.” This may be largely so in Western philosophy, but it is not universally so. Tempels does not accept this static conception of being. Instead, he attributes to the Bantu a dynamic conception of being, an ontology in which being is conceived as “vital force” The universe can be described as an interrelation of forces within the whole of existence. — Frans Dokman, Beyond Bantu Philosophy_…, 526 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Bantu ontology is grounded in vital force rather than Being — Frans Dokman, Beyond Bantu Philosophy_…, 526; Communitarian personhood defines identity through community rather than the Cartesian I — Frans Dokman, Beyond Bantu Philosophy_…, 434; Ubuntu personhood defines the self only through communal relation — , The Rod and the Child: A Global History…, 4252 (+3 more)

Related

• Ubuntu personhood defines the self only through communal relation (similarity 0.88)
• Communal philosophy need not imply unanimous belief among members (similarity 0.83)
• Bantu philosophy is the religious and ethical thought of the Bantu peoples. (similarity 0.82)
• Bantu ontology is holistic and unified through vital force, transcending Western dualisms (similarity 0.81)
• Bantu ontology is grounded in vital force rather than Being (similarity 0.80)
• In African thought the collective community precedes and grounds individual identity (similarity 0.80)
• Claiming force equals being makes the Bantu ontology a mere tautology (similarity 0.80)
• Africans achieve full personhood only through a long social birth process (similarity 0.80)
• African thought defines the human person as a relation to others, world, and God. (similarity 0.80)
• Tempels’s personhood idea is communitarian rather than a force thesis (similarity 0.79)
• In African thought a person is fundamentally a relation, not an individual (similarity 0.78)
• Tempels’s view is communitarian despite its vocabulary of ‘force’ (similarity 0.78)

Broader Connections

• Ubuntu personhood defines the self only through communal relation #corroborates (0.90) — , The Rod and the Child, 4252
• Communitarian personhood defines identity through community rather than the Cartesian I #corroborates (0.85) — Frans Dokman, Beyond Bantu Philosophy_…, 434
• Bantu ontology is grounded in vital force rather than Being #corroborates (0.60) — Frans Dokman, Beyond Bantu Philosophy_…, 526