Rene Descartes is often called the first modern philosopher, and his famous saying, “I think, therefore I am,” laid the groundwork for how we conceptualize our sense of self. But what if there’s an entirely different way to think about personal identity — a non-Western philosophy that rejects this over-emphasis on individuality?.
Consider the African philosophy of “ubuntu” — a concept in which your sense of self is shaped by your relationships with other people. It’s a way of living that begins with the premise that “I am” only because “we are.” Ubuntu focuses on how we perceive time, personhood, space, and other things. It is a timeless worldview that promotes “Oneness,” which is an awareness of the interdependence of all existence. All life, from the smallest organism to the greatest, is bound together by a golden thread of goodwill, or Ubuntu, which is also known as Love.
This presentation is a comprehensive analysis of the concept of ubuntu: what Ubuntu is, its philosophies and how it has been applied in different fields and lessons that can be drawn from these applications.
