Interview with Professor Mogobe Ramose

Abstract

"I am aware that even in ancient Greece as it is also the case in our time, humanity is under the grip of a dis-ease much more deadly, subtle, slow and swift in its ruthlessness than HIV/AIDS. The dis-ease is pecunimania blind, reckless, excessive and murderous love of money based on the reasoning that "I" and whenever convenient, "we" are the center of all that there is. It is clear to me from reading this book of life, the life of the peoples with whom I have no qualms in mixing, that human liberation will be attained when humanity is released from the captivity of centered reasoning." -- Mogobe Ramose

"I find "Africana Philosophy" interesting but quite disturbing ethically to the extent that it sees itself as a kind of "overarching" philosophy that almost naturally includes and supersedes African philosophy. This benign colonization is just as ethically questionable as the forcible colonization of Africa." -- Mogobe Ramose

"To limit philosophy to "ideas" is to consign it to the realm of intellectual masturbation salacious to the mystique. I do not agree with this limitation. Philosophy is action in, by and through experience giving rise to ideas that are constantly tested for acceptance, rejection or improvement. It is philopraxis." -- Mogobe Ramose

"To construe human beings primarily from the perspectives of culture and civilization is to fall into the trap of absolutism, immutability and eternity. It is the failure to recognize that "in the blood" we humans are one. Even those who claim to be blue blooded human beings are yet to find medical specialists trained to examine and treat only human beings with blue blood running through their veins and arteries." -- Mogobe Ramose