Overview

Biko was not only considered a ‘brilliant political theorist’, but is also considered ‘a formidable and articulate philosopher’. Biko was not simply and merely a philosopher in the manner in which Immanuel Kant was a philosopher, but a philosopher of a special kind, an important Africana existential philosopher. From Biko’s writings, speeches and interviews, Mabogo More’s view is that, philosophy is not a disembodied system of ideas nor is it a mechanical reflection about the world; rather, it is a way of existing and acting. To be a philosopher, especially an Africana existential philosopher, is not just to hold certain views, it is a way of perceiving and a way of being in the world, what Biko himself describes as ‘a way of life’. This important perspective on Biko would be of value to many Africana philosophers of existence, African philosophers, political and social thinkers, social scientists, psychologists, cultural critics, political activists, students, critical race theorists and anyone interested in the ideas that Biko presents.

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9780796925718

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Reviews

Biko: Philosophy, Identity & Liberation is a book of weight and consequence. Biko's rebellion, an intervention into being, is shown to have been philosophically informed and an event with enduring philosophical consequences. This book, written in sustained fidelity to human freedom, is a major contribution to South African philosophy and our understanding of the drama of oppression and resistance. It will be read, taught and discussed, here and abroad, for many years to come. - Richard Pithouse, author of Writing the Decline. Senior Researcher at the Unit for the Humanities at Rhodes University and a visiting researcher at the Wits Institute for Social & Economic Research at the University of the Witwatersrand. Mabogo More has added a much needed intellectual substance to the many volumes of work on Steve Biko and Black Consciousness in South Africa. He writes out of political conviction because he has firsthand knowledge of the emergence and development of Black Consciousness. He also adds the critical element of insight and philosophical rigour. By so doing he deals with those who have written BC off as a momentary fad, and to the academic critics who fail to acknowledge the intellectual weight of such a movement founded on deep thought and praxis. With the renewed struggles for decoloniality on our campuses, and African thought and ideas, this is an essential text for every student and activist, and required reading at our universities. - N Barney Pityana GCOB; Professor Emeritus of Law (University of South Africa), Honorary Visiting Professor, Department of Philosophy, Rhodes University. Mabogo P. More's authorial inscription of Steve Biko stands out to be originally incisive, insistent and insightful. It is a valid confirmatory reflection that gives Biko his rightful philosophical standing in the Africana existentialist tradition. Biko: Philosophy, Identity and Liberation will continue to stand as a canon because at each juncture it excavates and illuminates the figure that still haunts the antiblack world. - Tendayi Sithole, associate professor of Political Science at the University of South Africa. Author of Steve Biko: Decolonial Meditations of Black Consciousness

Author Information

Mabogo Percy More is a former professor of philosophy at the University of the North, University of Durban-Westville and University of KwaZulu-Natal. He is the 2015 winner of the Frantz Fanon Lifetime Achievement Award and has published widely on Fanon, Sartre, Biko and Black Consciousness. He is currently professor of philosophy at the University of Limpopo.

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