The Philosophical Underpinnings of Being As Foundations of Just Cross-Cultural Dialogue: a Comparative Study of Kantian Thought and “African” Political Theory
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The Philosophical Underpinnings of Being as Foundations of Just Cross-Cultural Dialogue: A Comparative Study of Kantian Thought and “African” Political Theory. A Dissertation Submitted for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy University of Sheffield. Gemma Kristina Bird Department of Politics Faculty of Social Sciences December 2014 1 Table of Contents Summary: ................................................................................................................................. 4 Acknowledgements .................................................................................................................. 6 Introduction: ............................................................................................................................ 9 .1- Introduction and Overview: ............................................................................................ 9 .2- African Political Theory: ................................................................................................ 18 .3- Core Contributions: ....................................................................................................... 25 .4- Chapters: ....................................................................................................................... 26 Chapter 1- Kantian Framework: ............................................................................................. 31 1.1- Self-Law Giving and Willkür: ....................................................................................... 35 i. Self-Law Giving ............................................................................................................ 35 ii. Willkür and the Condition of “Right” ......................................................................... 39 1.2- The A Priori Right to Freedom and the Duty to Obtain it: .......................................... 47 1.3- The Debate Surrounding the Divide between Morality and Politics: ......................... 50 1.4- Applying the Framework to the African Case: ............................................................ 59 i. Equality of Individuals ................................................................................................. 60 ii. Self-Mastery ............................................................................................................... 61 iii. Freedom of Choice versus Domination ..................................................................... 62 1.5- Conclusion:.................................................................................................................. 62 Chapter 2- The Elephant in the Room: Culture:..................................................................... 64 2.1- Definitions of Culture: ................................................................................................. 67 2.2- The Relationship between Majority and Minority Cultures: ...................................... 75 2.3- The Incommensurability Thesis: ................................................................................. 81 2.4- Common Language and Practice: ............................................................................... 91 2.5- Conclusion: A Comparative Approach to Culture: ...................................................... 96 Chapter 3- Négritude: ............................................................................................................ 99 3.1- Introduction: What is Négritude: .............................................................................. 105 i. Why Négritude .......................................................................................................... 105 ii. Key Figures and Texts ............................................................................................... 106 iii. The Movement Itself ............................................................................................... 112 iiii. Relationship with the Colonisers ............................................................................ 119 3.2- The Artistic and Cultural Turn: .................................................................................. 123 3.3- Blackness, Otherness and Independence: ................................................................ 130 3.4- The Universal Civilisation and Présence Africaine: ................................................... 134 2 3.5- Frantz Fanon and a Critique of the Négritude Movement: ...................................... 142 i. General Critique ........................................................................................................ 142 ii. Frantz Fanon ............................................................................................................. 146 3.6- Conclusion:................................................................................................................ 152 Chapter 4- African Socialism: ............................................................................................... 155 4.1- Introduction: Why African Socialism? ...................................................................... 156 4.2- The Pan-African Presidents: ...................................................................................... 168 4.3- Kantian Undertones: ................................................................................................. 172 i. Self-Mastery .............................................................................................................. 173 ii. External Freedom of Choice, Autonomy, and Equality ............................................ 177 iii. Domination and Oppression ................................................................................... 180 iiii. Ujamaa Vijijini ......................................................................................................... 183 4.4- The Failings of the African Socialist Projects of Nyerere, Nkrumah, and Machel: ... 188 4.5- Conclusion:................................................................................................................ 192 Chapter 5- Post-Colonial Philosophers: ............................................................................... 195 5.1- Introduction to the Post-Colonial Philosophers: ...................................................... 196 5.2- A Critique of Narratives of “Return”, Traditional Values and Ethnophilosophy: ..... 200 5.3- Universal Principles and the Role of Culture: ........................................................... 210 5.4- Kantianism and Contemporary African Philosophy: ................................................. 219 i. Rights and Duties of the Individual to be Autonomous ............................................ 220 ii. Guaranteeing Willkür within a Condition of Public Right ........................................ 223 5.5- Conclusion:................................................................................................................ 225 Concluding Remarks: ........................................................................................................... 227 6.1- Summary: .................................................................................................................. 229 6.2- Objections and Responses: ....................................................................................... 234 6.3- Future Works and New Directions:........................................................................... 238 6.4- Closing Remarks: ....................................................................................................... 239 Bibliography: ........................................................................................................................ 243 3 Summary: This thesis asks whether foundational principles exist, from which meaningful and just cross-cultural dialogue can take place to establish international principles of conduct, interactions and law. It claims that this will offer a possible and viable response to the concerns surrounding the homogenising nature of universalism, and the often imperialist justifications underlying it in cases of international principle formation and application. This is achieved by postulating Kantian notions of internal self-law giving and external willkür as potential foundational principles. It then seeks to question the validity of these claims through an examination of African political theory. The purpose of this is to look at African political theory for ideas equal to, or similar in foundation to, notions of internal and external self-law giving. The aim is to establish an analytical framework through which the principles of internal and external self-law giving can be operationalised for usage in the textual analysis; defining the analytical framework as including the concepts of freedom of choice versus domination, equality of individuals and self-mastery as representing the overarching principles of internal and external self-law giving. Following on from this Chapter 2 locates the thesis within the wider literature through a discussion of culture, universalism and relativism in both the Western liberal and African traditions. It establishes the role of this thesis in arguing that these foundations can form the basis for open and just cross-cultural dialogue. Finally the main body of the work focuses on a selection of schools of African political thought, or collection of thinkers, which have been grouped together based on similarities in their views or the individual’s