Philosophy

Welcome to the UP Department of Philosophy, with a vibrant research and postgraduate community as well as a welcoming undergraduate student association!

If you are a student, we will challenge your thinking by teaching you how to argue to defend your views, how to fulfill the age-old philosophical role of being the gatekeepers of society in true sage style, and how to enjoy pushing your cognitive limits. We will also always support you and have time to listen to you and guide you.

UP has one of the largest and most diverse philosophy departments in Southern Africa. Ten permanent staff members lecture material in the Anglo-American, Continental, and African philosophical traditions as well as undertake and supervise research using a variety of methods, including the analytic, hermeneutic, phenomenological, and conversational.

Thematically, the department has particular expertise in the domains of:

• value theory, such as dignity, uniqueness, self-formation, the meaning of life, personhood/ubuntu, right action, as well as virtues such as humility, love, and gratitude;
• justice, including gender/feminism, racism, racial equity and transformation, post-apartheid South Africa, punishment and law, democracy, human rights, neoliberalism, communitarianism, socio-economic development, and the distribution of wealth;
• normative ethics, applied ethics and social philosophy, e.g., complementary ethics and other theories in African ethics, the philosophy of technology and esp. AI ethics, the digital/virtual, transhumanism, race/ethnicity, decoloniality, identity and subjectivity, governmentality, ujamaa, consciencism, black consciousness movement, the ethics of monuments, the morality of violence, as well as environmental and biomedical ethics;
• history of philosophy, especially 20^th century Continental figures such as Heidegger, Levinas, Foucault, Innocent Asouzu, and other figures in African philosophy;
• comparative philosophy, especially African and Western, but also philosophies from South America and East Asia;
• metaphysics, including philosophical anthropology, selfhood, philosophy of religion, general ontology and theories in African metaphysics;
• epistemology, such as logic, relativism and contextualism, the philosophy of science, and epistemic injustice; and theories in African epistemology; and
• metaphilosophy, especially proper philosophical method and the value of knowledge for its own sake and methods in African philosophy;

For any questions or queries, please do not hesitate to contact the Department.

Tel: 012 420 2326 | Humanities Building, 20th floor.