By Hugh Toner, Contributing Writer
On Thursday, the Philosophy Department held the 20th Frederick and Martha Mahan Lecture Series. The lecture, titled “Where is Africa? What is it?” featured guest lecturer Professor Mogobe Ramose from the Sefako Makgatho University in South Africa, and Ramose discussed the necessity for mutual respect pertaining to racial and cultural differences.
Chair of the Philosophy Department Gary Mullen welcomed those in attendance and briefly reflected on the life of Frederick Mahan for whom the lecture series was named: “Fred firmly believed that education was about more than just preparation for mundane pursuits, professions. However, and should include engagement with the fundamental questions that confront us as human beings. We carry Fred’s memory and his educational vision with us in all that we do here, and as we hold these annual lectures in his honor.”
After being introduced, Ramose began the lecture with a moment of silence for Paulin Hountondji. He then stated that all animals are rational beings and that many scholars, including himself, use the word Africa under protest as it is not the indigenous name for the continent.
Ramose described the current state of the world as a jigsaw puzzle that cannot be put back together.
“Africa is everywhere due to historical and biological factors, despite geographical separation, but we don’t need to look only in geographic terms relating to the separation of continents,” Ramose said. “We have to look at it historically and also in terms of biological anthropology. From that point of view, we can say that even though we are here physically, Africa is everywhere.”
Ramose described the joining of the Atlantic and Indian oceans in Cape Town as having “mutual respect for one another, with no clear boundaries between them. They can be bounded in a way that there is mutual respect between them.”
Additionally, Ramose explained how 99.9% of humans share the same DNA structures and emphasized our shared identities: “Is there really a big deal about me calling myself Brown, another calling themselves Black, and another calling themselves white? What is the point of this clarification?”
Ramose then stated his belief that God is not a fixed entity but a “metaphysical concept that has developed over time. The concept of God is not empirically verifiable.” Ramose then elaborated on his belief that the nature of telos and logos in organized religion seeks to create a “strange and artificial nature of social constructs like racial boundaries and conflict.”
From his point of view, he questioned why society chooses to ignore the religion of science that states that we are all one with another and the same. According to Ramose, the lecture aimed to illustrate the divisions created by society. The cause of this division is the fragmentation of science, religion and society.
Ramose explained, “You can see that if we act with sufficient, critical consciousness of what we do and why we do it, many things will fall into place.”
Before ending the lecture, he described the nature of an individual’s relative smallness compared to the universe. Using the metaphor of an airplane, he stated that from the outside, the airplane appears massive. However, on the inside, the airplane appears to be of moderate size.
Ramose said that in the scheme of the universe, the airplane is “so small, that it is indistinguishable from that of an ant,” emphasizing his opinion that we as humans should seek to be more like the Atlantic and Indian oceans by sharing a mutual respect for one another.
(Editor’s Note: This article was edited at 7:50 p.m. on February 26, 2024 to correctly specify who spoke on Fred Mahan’s life and to name Paulin Hountondji, who Ramose held the moment of silence for. – L. Franchetti)
