Self and Community in a Changing World

Revisiting African philosophy’s classic questions, D. A. Masolo advances understandings of what it means to be human―whether of African or other origin. Masolo reframes indigenous knowledge as diversity: How are we to understand the place and structure of consciousness? How does the everyday color the world we know? Where are the boundaries between self and other, universal and particular, and individual and community? From here, he takes a dramatic turn toward Africa’s current political situation and considers why individual rights and freedoms have not been recognized, respected, demanded, or enforced. Masolo offers solutions for containing socially destructive conduct and antisocial tendencies by engaging community. His unique thinking about community and the role of the individual extends African philosophy in new, global directions.

D. A. Masolo is Professor of Philosophy and Justus Bier Professor of Humanities at the University of Louisville. He is author of African Philosophy in Search of Identity (IUP, 1994) and editor (with Ivan Karp) of African Philosophy as Cultural Inquiry (IUP, 2000).