Fwd: Inaugural Lecture: Professor Jonathan Okeke Chimakonam

[Aribiah Attoe]

Professor Kevin Thomas, the Dean of the Faculty of Humanities at the University of Pretoria, cordially invites you to the inaugural lecture of Professor Jonathan Okeke Chimakonam, Professor of Philosophy:

 

Title: The Communal Contract and the Real African Predicament: Colonialysis, Communialysis and the Danger of the Post-Community

Date: Wednesday, 01 October 2025

Time: 17:30 for 18:00 (16:30 for 17:00 WAT/Nigeria time)

Venue: Plant Science Auditorium, Hatfield Campus

Online: https://youtube.com/live/C1AvPXDK47A?feature=share

RSVP: By 29 September 2025 using this link or the one in the attached invitation.

Abstract

The most prominent problem articulated in contemporary African thought is often called the ‘African predicament’ a collection of socio-political, ideological and economic challenges that hinders Africa’s development. This problem has attracted several theories in the decades after colonial rule; all have, intriguingly, been falsified by history. I will theorise a new model with a philosophical pedigree based on ignored ancient African history and its ideological commitments to rival the moribund externalist or internalist theses captured in extant theories. Although the claims in the preceding theses cannot be faulted on the grounds of empirical evidence, unpacking the problem itself has always been historically shortsighted and philosophically shortchanged in the literature. For example, empirical evidence may support both the externalist and internalist claims about the causes of the African predicament because neo-colonial agendas and post-colonial leadership failures are evident, but why have these factors continued to waft strongly decades after political independence? Why has the system been unable to correct itself despite the awareness of the problems, the freedom of self-governance, and the abundance of natural and human resources? This inaugural address will probe into ancient Africa to theorise on logical and socio-psychological factors embedded in the notion of the ‘post-community’ that could disclose historical roots of the real African predicament. It will further go beyond post-colonial analyses like ‘colonialysis’ to articulate a new problematic in the ilk of ‘communialysis’ and show how these factors implicate ideological commitments that upended ancient Africa and continue to thwart contemporary Africa’s quest to modernise.

Email: naledi.s...@up.ac.za

Email enquiries to Ms Naledi Sebetlele naledi.s...@up.ac.za

 

 

--

Jonathan O Chimakonam, PhD

Professor of Philosophy

Department of Philosophy

University of Pretoria

**Logician, Social Thinker and Public Intellectual**

Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds --- Albert Einstein

Room 20-11, Level 20, Humanities Building, University of Pretoria

     Private Bag X20, Hatfield 0028, South Africa

      t: +27 (0)12 420 2697

      e: jonatha...@up.ac.za 

       www.up.ac.za/faculty-of-humanities

My latest books:

1. Contemporary Debates in African and Western Philosophy: Analytic and Intercultural Approaches (2025) https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/contemporary-debates-in-african-and-western-philosophy-9781350334007/

2. African Democracy: Impediments, Promises and Prospects (2023) https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/african-democracy-9781350299238/ 

3. African Ethics: A Guide to Key Ideas (2023)  https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/african-ethics-9781350191785/

4. Essays on Contemporary Issues in African Philosophy (2022)

https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-030-70436-0

5. African Metaphysics, Epistemology and a New Logic: A Decolonial Approach to Philosophy (2021)

Available at https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-030-72445-0

or on Amazon: https://www.amazon.ca/African-Metaphysics-Epistemology-New-Logic/dp/3030724441

or

https://www.springer.com/de/book/9783030724443?utm_campaign=bookpage_about_buyonpublisherssite&utm_medium=referral&utm_source=springerlink#otherversion=9783030724450

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