Although it is incorrect to refer to an independent South African philosophical tradition, South Africa is nevertheless the location of an interesting history of philosophical institutionalization. This institutionalization is closely intertwined with the colonial and postcolonial history of Western expansion (Dutch and English) and the reactions it unleashed within the South African context. It is especially interesting to trace the influence and the application of Anglo-American and continental origins in South Africa. Even in contemporary South Africa, philosophers who are working in fields such as postmodernism, postcolonialism, feminism and analytical philosophy do so mostly under the influence of contexts beyond South Africa’s borders.
After the early Dutch influence in South Africa (1652–1806) a British colonial educational system emerged during the nineteenth century. From the first institutions of higher education (the South African College in Cape Town, and the University of the Cape of Good Hope) the first tertiary institutions emerged in the early part of the twentieth century at Cape Town, Stellenbosch, Witwatersrand (Johannesburg) and Pretoria. Although other universities were subsequently instituted, these four can be considered the four founding residential universities in South Africa. It is also at these universities (and at Colleges in Grahamstown, Bloemfontein, Durban and Pietermaritzburg) that British idealism had a major influence on the early stages of South African philosophy (1873–1940). Against this background figures such as Fremantle (Cape Town), Walker (Stellenbosch), Hoernlé (Johannesburg), Lord (Grahamstown) and Macfadyen (Pretoria) were instrumental.
From the 1930s the hegemony of British idealism was challenged by analytical philosophy (mainly at English-speaking South African universities) and continental traditions (mainly at Afrikaans-speaking universities). Since the political transformation of South Africa (1994) African philosophy has also emerged as a major philosophical tradition.
The challenge for philosophy in contemporary South Africa is to explore those intellectual traditions that have shaped philosophy in South Africa, to know where they are coming from and to understand how they were transformed under (post)colonial conditions. Such a (genealogical) perspective provides a historical and material corrective to arguments that might otherwise strive to reconcile cultural values and ideas in an apolitical and ahistorical manner.
The Post-Apartheid Labour Market Series
