Ubuntu as a way of life: The contribution of african philosophy to think about democracy

Abstract

This study aims at analysing the notion of Ubuntu as a contribution to think about democracy, especially the crisis it faces in Brazil, before the current historical reality of intolerance, racial discrimination, social exclusion, and dehumanization. For this reason, we raise the following question: Can Africa contribute to think about democracy through her life’s philosophy expressed in Ubuntu? The first part of the text analyses the concept of Ubuntu, highlighting its philosophical character. The second part develops two structural characteristics of Ubuntu: Community and tolerance. The research methodology is characterised as a bibliographical work, whose contribution is a philosophical analysis of the expression Ubuntu, based on the African way of life, from the works of Ramose: African Philosophy Through Ubuntu (2005); of Gyekye: Person and community in African thought (2003). We defend that understanding Ubuntu as an African way of life, based on interdependence, inter-constitution, interconnection and inter-humanisation is to contribute to think about democracy as an ethical, social and political way of life that recognises and considers the other(s) as individual(s) of differences that make humanisation possible.