This collection of essays constitute testaments to the depth of a foremost contemporary African philosopher’s reflections on one of the most important issues which determine the direction/quality of human existence as a gregarious being. Are human beings atoms and individuals, with no connections or obligations to any other, but the self? Or, are human beings the products of families, communities, and societies and, therefore, beings that bear responsibility for the well-being of others as well as of self? As humanity navigates the 21st century, coming from the declining fortunes of destructively dominant Western traditions which privilege violence, inequality, and bigotry of all forms, centering African understanding of personhood as a social, community-based being—local and global—is a project which harkens back to the role Africa has placed in birthing human civilization and which has ensured the survival of post-apartheid South Africa grounded in Ubuntu philosophy. The essays in this volume will continue to serve as reference markers for scholarship and research into African/global humanity in the years and decades to come.

John Ayotunde Isola Bewaji, University of the West Indies

The authors of this text must be appreciated for their analytical acumen in dissecting the concept of personhood. The dynamism of their thoughts and the dexterity of their espousals are second to none. This text will remain for a long time to come one of the profoundest, clearest, ambitious, critical and rigorous text on the concept of personhood.

G. O. Ozumba, University of Calabar, Nigeria