Prof. Mogobe Ramose
Short-Term Fellow
April – May 2025
Bio
Mogobe Bernard Ramose is a South African-born philosopher widely recognized for his foundational role in the internationalization of African philosophy, particularly Ubuntu. He is currently Professor Extraordinarius in the Department of Philosophy at the University of South Africa and a Research Professor at Sefako Makgatho Health Sciences University.
Ramose earned his PhD in Philosophy from the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (Belgium) in 1983, and also holds an MSc in International Relations from the London School of Economics. He spent part of his academic career in exile as a political refugee, holding academic positions at institutions including Tilburg University (Netherlands), Louvain University (Belgium), the University of Zimbabwe, and Addis Ababa University. He has taught philosophy, ethics, and philosophy of law in Southern Africa and beyond.
His influential works include African Philosophy Through Ubuntu (1999), which has been translated into Dutch, and Van Eeden kiest voor de maan (2020). He is also the editor of Hegel’s Twilight (2013) and has published extensively on justice, sovereignty, reconciliation, and the place of African thought in global philosophy.
Ramose’s work is dedicated to the idea of Mothofatso, that is “humanization,” in contrast to other approaches like Humanism or Decoloniality (see his critique of Ramon Grosfoguel’s epistemic decolonial turn). He has served on editorial boards, received numerous awards including the UNISA Chancellor’s Prize for Research, and was honored with a festschrift in 2019 titled The Tenacity of Truthfulness: Philosophical Essays in Honour of Mogobe Bernard Ramose.
Research
Ethics, African Philosophy, Philosophy of Law
Regions
Southern Africa in dialogue with mainly Western Europe
Languages
Northern seSotho (Sepedi), seTswana, seZulu, English
books
Van Eeden kiest voor de maan, Leusden: ISVW Uitgevers, 2020.
African Philosophy Through Ubuntu. Harare: Mond Books, 1999, 2nd ed. 2005.
Hegel’s Twilight: Liber Amicorum Discipulorumque Pro Heinz Kimmerle, Amsterdam / New York: Rodopi, 2013.
Contrasts and Contests About Philosophy, Abingdon: Routledge, 2016.
Articles
“Critique of Ramon Grosfoguel’s ‘The Epistemic Decolonial Turn’,” Alternation, Vol 27, Issue 1 (2020), p. 271-307.
“Ethical Responsibility for the Other Arrested by Epistemic Blindness, Deafness, and Muteness: An Ubuntu Perspective,” in Katerina Standish et al. (eds.), The Palgrave Handbook of Positive Peace, Singapur: Palgrave Macmillan, 2022, pp. 909-933.
“Motho ke motho ka batho: An African perspective on popular sovereignty and democracy,” in Mourad, I et al. (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Comparative Political Theory, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2020, pp. 261-280.
“Teacher and Student with a Critical Pan-Epistemic Orientation: An Ethical Necessity for Africanising the Educational Curriculum in Africa,” in: The South African Journal of Philosophy, 35/4 (2016), pp. 546-555.
