Kai Horsthemke
Biographic Data
| ID | 4172131 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Kai Horsthemke |
| GIVEN NAMES | Kai |
| FAMILY NAME | Horsthemke |
| SIGNATURE | HORSTHEMKE K |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of the Witwatersrand |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-0960-5789 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 29 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 42 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 29 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2004 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 4 |
Philosophy of education as pluriversal: Opening the dialogues
Epistemic reparations and postcolonial pedagogy: Some conceptual decluttering
Knowledge, Truth, and Education in Post-Normal Times
The advent of Covid-19, a new and highly contagious form of Corona virus, in late 2019 cast a harsh light on human vulnerabilities and on the provocations (and opportunities) facing humanity. Although many of the more drastic measures applied within educational settings have since ceased to apply, at least for the time being, we are not yet ‘past Covid’: many of the challenges that are discussed here still exist. As we faced unprecedented disrupt…
Animal advocacy, fear and loathing in academia: A response to Helena Pedersen
Helena Pedersen’s powerful keynote address poses the question: What prevents education from becoming a transformative force in times of ‘omnicide’, that is, ‘the annihilation of everything’? She locates at least part of the response in ‘institutional anxiety’, which constitutes a (social-) psychological barrier to radical change. In particular, she discusses anxiety related to the moral standing of non-human animals as a threat to human exception…
Introduction: Education, the environment and sustainability
The 17th Biennial INPE Meeting was scheduled to take place from 28 to 31 July 2020 at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México. Of course, there is something ironic about convening a conference on the environment and sustainability that would require presenters to utilize unsustainable modes of transport in order to participate. As it turned out, because of the outbreak and rapid global spread of a new Corona virus, the conference was cancelle…
Diversity and Epistemic Marginalisation: The Case of Inclusive Education
Philosophische Bildung und Didaktik: Dimensionen, Vermittlungen, Perspektiven
Besonders in den letzten Jahren ist auf die Begriffe der epistemologischen Vielfalt und der unterschiedlichen Epistemologien zunehmend Aufmerksamkeit gelenkt worden. Kritisch betrachtet bedeutet “epistemologische Vielfalt” allerdings weder eine Vielzahl von Wahrheiten noch eine “Alles-ist-erlaubt”-Auffassung von Rechtfertigung und Wissen, sondern die an gewisse soziale und geografische Orte geknüpften unterschiedlichen Erfahrungen, bzw. die versc…
Non‐Human Animals and Educational Policy: Philosophical Post‐humanism, Critical Pedagogy, and Ecopedagogy1
Questions about the conscious, conative and cognitive life, as well as the status and treatment of other-than-animals have been receiving systematic consideration by philosophers for close to fifty years. It is all the more puzzling, then, that it is only in recent years that these issues have been addressed by educational philosophers and scholars of moral education, the focus being mainly on the eating of animals. This essay examines some of th…
Epistemologische Vielfalt‘ und Global Citizenship Education
Three broad kinds of orientation can be identified with regard to (global) citizenship education, or (G)CE: cosmopolitanism, localism, and relationalism.They differ in their respective approaches not only to cultural transmission and instruction but also to knowledge and knowledge production.My aim in this paper is to interrogate the notion of local or indigenous knowledge in (G)CE research and to investigate whether the postcolonial idea of epis…
Animal Rights Education
African communalism, persons, and the case of non-human animals
“I am because we are, and since we are, therefore I am”, generally regarded as the guiding principle of African humanism, expresses the view that a person is a person through other persons and is closely associated but not identical with African communitarianism, or communalism. Against Ifeanyi Menkiti’s “unrestricted or radical or excessive communitarianism” Kwame Gyekye has proposed a “restricted or moderate communitarianism”. Whereas personhoo…
Biocentrism, Ecocentrism, and African Modal Relationalism: Etieyibo, Metz, and Galgut on Animals and African Ethics
In this brief reply to the essays by Edwin Etieyibo (2017), Thad Metz (2017), and Elisa Galgut (2017), I argue (a) that African morality is neither biocentric nor ecocentric in the sense of accepting that “there is no significant moral difference between animal and human slaughter and rituals,” and (b) that African modal relationalism is problematic in both its empirical assumptions and its normative counsel. I concede that anthropocentrism, whet…
Animals and African Ethics
African ethics is primarily concerned with community and harmonious communal relationships. The claim is frequently made on behalf of African moral beliefs and customs that, in stark contrast with Western moral attitudes and practices, there is no comparable objectification and exploitation of other-than-human animals and nature. This article investigates whether this claim is correct by examining the status of animals in religious and philosophi…
Inclusive education and Barrierefreiheit: Some social-epistemological considerations
Barrierefreiheit is a key term in the German inclusion movement, in education and more generally. Sometimes translated as ‘accessibility’, it refers not just to absence of barriers but to freedom from barriers, which in turn indicates a significant social and ethical component. It signals an active, conscious intervention by agents, a consequence of agentic commitment towards crossing borders and overcoming boundaries. In this regard, this articl…
FactsMustFall’? – education in a post-truth, post-truthful world
Taking its inspiration from the name of the recent ‘#FeesMustFall’ movement on South African university campuses, this paper takes stock of the apparent disrepute into which truth, facts and also rationality have fallen in recent times. In the post-truth world, the blurring of borders between truth and deception, truthfulness and dishonesty, and non-fiction and fiction has become a habit – and also an educational challenge. I argue that truth mat…
Philosophy of Education: Becoming Less Western, More African
Posing the question ‘How diverse is philosophy of education in the West?’ this paper responds to two recent defences of African philosophy of education which endorse its communitarianism and oppose individualism in Western philosophy of education. After outlining Thaddeus Metz's argument that Western philosophy of education should become more African by being more communitarian, and Yusef Waghid's defence of communitarianism in African philosophy…
Animals and the Law in East, West and Southern Africa
The London Convention for the Protection of Wild Animals, Birds and Fish in Africa is one of the earliest animal protection treaties in Africa. It was signed in 1900 by the European colonial powers with the intention of protecting African ‘game’ species, particularly the African elephant, from uncontrolled massacre, to safeguard the conservation of diverse wild animals and, for example, to limit the export of ivory. 1 Tellingly, African states be…
Animals and African Ethics
Ubuntu/Botho/Hunhu and Nonhuman Animals
Among Native Americans, the view of the interconnectedness of all life, between the human and the nonhuman realms, on the one hand, and the human and the ancestral and spirit realms, on the other (Kwenda 1999: 10; Murove 2004; Murove 2009), finds expression in the Lakota phrase Mitakuye oyasin or the Cree concept of wahkohtowin ('All is related'; 'We are all related'), both of which refer to the self in relation, the self defined relationally. In…
Epistemic empathy in childrearing and education
The question, what is it like to be a child?, is one that most of us, in our capacity as parents and/or educators, have probably asked ourselves already at some point. Perhaps one might go further and suggest that it is a question we ought to ask (or have asked) ourselves, insofar as the attempt to provide a meaningful response has a significant bearing on childrearing and education. It is a question that presumably frames the processes of cognit…
Of ants and men: Epistemic injustice, commitment to truth, and the possibility of outsider critique in education
Does the imperative that we ought to try to understand one another make any sense? Presumably not – if it is correct that there are indeed different truths, and that the quest for objectivity is appropriate only in certain cultural contexts. After carefully mapping out the epistemological and ethical terrain, with special reference to the notions of ‘outsider understanding’ (and resistance to this idea), ‘other ways of knowing’ and epistemic inju…
On Bullshit’ and ‘Mindfucking’: An essay on mental manipulation in education
In 2005 and 2008, respectively, two books by well-established and -respected analytical philosophers caused some controversy, not only because of their provocative and eye-catching titles but also because of the sheer brevity of the essays they contained. Harry Frankfurt's book, which analysed the prevalence of ‘bullshit’ in contemporary society, was generally lauded for elevating a slang term to a new epistemological category, despite some peopl…
Rethinking the ‘Western Tradition’
In recent years, the ‘Western tradition’ has increasingly come under attack in anti-colonialist and postmodernist discourses. It is not difficult to sympathise with the concerns that underlie advocacy of historically marginalised traditions, and the West undoubtedly has a lot to answer for. Nonetheless, while arguing a qualified yes to the central question posed for this special issue, we question the assumption that the West can be neatly distin…
African and Afrikaner 'ways of knowing: Truth and the problems of superstition and 'blood knowledge
The approbation, in the last few decades, of 'African ways of knowing' and, more recently, the critical emphasis on 'knowledge in the blood'—which refers to 'deeply entrenched' and 'received knowledge', notably of (white) Afrikaners—give rise to all kinds of questions and concerns. What makes certain ways of knowing and kinds of knowledge 'African' and 'Afrikaner', respectively? What do these ideas cover and include, and what falls outside their …
Rethinking humane education
The increase in violence in South African schools, as elsewhere, has been associated with a general ‘decline in moral values’. There have been three different responses that emphasise the decline in religious teaching at schools, the loss of traditional values like ubuntu, communalism and the like; and humankind's increasing alienation from nature. In other words, in terms of teaching and learning initiatives, we should turn to religion, communit…
Can ubuntu provide a model for citizenship education in African democracies
Some proponents of Africanism argue that African traditional education and the principles of ubuntu should provide the framework for citizenship education. While conceding that understandable concerns lie behind defences of ubuntu as underpinning African democracy, we argue that the Africanist perspective faces various problems and makes substantial errors: political, moral, epistemic and educational. While democracy and democratic citizenship ne…
Knowledge, Education and the Limits of Africanisation
‘Africanisation’ has, during the last few decades, been a buzzword that has enjoyed special currency in South Africa. Africanisation is generally seen to signal a (renewed) focus on Africa, on reclamation of what has been taken from Africa, and, as such, it forms part of post-colonialist, anti-racist discourse. With regard to knowledge, it comprises a focus on indigenous African knowledge and concerns simultaneously ‘legitimation’ and ‘protection…
The Idea of Indigenous Knowledge
Rethinking the ‘Western Tradition’
In recent years, the ‘Western tradition’ has increasingly come under attack in anti-colonialist and postmodernist discourses. It is not difficult to sympathise with the concerns that underlie advocacy of historically marginalised traditions, and the West undoubtedly has a lot to answer for. Nonetheless, while arguing a qualified yes to the central question posed for this special issue, we question the assumption that the West can be neatly distin…
Non‐Human Animals and Educational Policy: Philosophical Post‐humanism, Critical Pedagogy, and Ecopedagogy1
Questions about the conscious, conative and cognitive life, as well as the status and treatment of other-than-animals have been receiving systematic consideration by philosophers for close to fifty years. It is all the more puzzling, then, that it is only in recent years that these issues have been addressed by educational philosophers and scholars of moral education, the focus being mainly on the eating of animals. This essay examines some of th…
African and Afrikaner 'ways of knowing: Truth and the problems of superstition and 'blood knowledge
The approbation, in the last few decades, of 'African ways of knowing' and, more recently, the critical emphasis on 'knowledge in the blood'—which refers to 'deeply entrenched' and 'received knowledge', notably of (white) Afrikaners—give rise to all kinds of questions and concerns. What makes certain ways of knowing and kinds of knowledge 'African' and 'Afrikaner', respectively? What do these ideas cover and include, and what falls outside their …
Knowledge, Education and the Limits of Africanisation
‘Africanisation’ has, during the last few decades, been a buzzword that has enjoyed special currency in South Africa. Africanisation is generally seen to signal a (renewed) focus on Africa, on reclamation of what has been taken from Africa, and, as such, it forms part of post-colonialist, anti-racist discourse. With regard to knowledge, it comprises a focus on indigenous African knowledge and concerns simultaneously ‘legitimation’ and ‘protection…
Can ubuntu provide a model for citizenship education in African democracies
Some proponents of Africanism argue that African traditional education and the principles of ubuntu should provide the framework for citizenship education. While conceding that understandable concerns lie behind defences of ubuntu as underpinning African democracy, we argue that the Africanist perspective faces various problems and makes substantial errors: political, moral, epistemic and educational. While democracy and democratic citizenship ne…
The Idea of Indigenous Knowledge
Rethinking humane education
The increase in violence in South African schools, as elsewhere, has been associated with a general ‘decline in moral values’. There have been three different responses that emphasise the decline in religious teaching at schools, the loss of traditional values like ubuntu, communalism and the like; and humankind's increasing alienation from nature. In other words, in terms of teaching and learning initiatives, we should turn to religion, communit…
African Philosophy of Education: The Price of Unchallengeability
African and Afrikaner 'ways of knowing: Truth and the problems of superstition and 'blood knowledge
The approbation, in the last few decades, of 'African ways of knowing' and, more recently, the critical emphasis on 'knowledge in the blood'—which refers to 'deeply entrenched' and 'received knowledge', notably of (white) Afrikaners—give rise to all kinds of questions and concerns. What makes certain ways of knowing and kinds of knowledge 'African' and 'Afrikaner', respectively? What do these ideas cover and include, and what falls outside their …
Of ants and men: Epistemic injustice, commitment to truth, and the possibility of outsider critique in education
Does the imperative that we ought to try to understand one another make any sense? Presumably not – if it is correct that there are indeed different truths, and that the quest for objectivity is appropriate only in certain cultural contexts. After carefully mapping out the epistemological and ethical terrain, with special reference to the notions of ‘outsider understanding’ (and resistance to this idea), ‘other ways of knowing’ and epistemic inju…
On Bullshit’ and ‘Mindfucking’: An essay on mental manipulation in education
In 2005 and 2008, respectively, two books by well-established and -respected analytical philosophers caused some controversy, not only because of their provocative and eye-catching titles but also because of the sheer brevity of the essays they contained. Harry Frankfurt's book, which analysed the prevalence of ‘bullshit’ in contemporary society, was generally lauded for elevating a slang term to a new epistemological category, despite some peopl…
Rethinking the ‘Western Tradition’
In recent years, the ‘Western tradition’ has increasingly come under attack in anti-colonialist and postmodernist discourses. It is not difficult to sympathise with the concerns that underlie advocacy of historically marginalised traditions, and the West undoubtedly has a lot to answer for. Nonetheless, while arguing a qualified yes to the central question posed for this special issue, we question the assumption that the West can be neatly distin…
Animals and the Law in East, West and Southern Africa
The London Convention for the Protection of Wild Animals, Birds and Fish in Africa is one of the earliest animal protection treaties in Africa. It was signed in 1900 by the European colonial powers with the intention of protecting African ‘game’ species, particularly the African elephant, from uncontrolled massacre, to safeguard the conservation of diverse wild animals and, for example, to limit the export of ivory. 1 Tellingly, African states be…
Animals and African Ethics
Ubuntu/Botho/Hunhu and Nonhuman Animals
Among Native Americans, the view of the interconnectedness of all life, between the human and the nonhuman realms, on the one hand, and the human and the ancestral and spirit realms, on the other (Kwenda 1999: 10; Murove 2004; Murove 2009), finds expression in the Lakota phrase Mitakuye oyasin or the Cree concept of wahkohtowin ('All is related'; 'We are all related'), both of which refer to the self in relation, the self defined relationally. In…
Epistemic empathy in childrearing and education
The question, what is it like to be a child?, is one that most of us, in our capacity as parents and/or educators, have probably asked ourselves already at some point. Perhaps one might go further and suggest that it is a question we ought to ask (or have asked) ourselves, insofar as the attempt to provide a meaningful response has a significant bearing on childrearing and education. It is a question that presumably frames the processes of cognit…
Philosophy of Education: Becoming Less Western, More African
Posing the question ‘How diverse is philosophy of education in the West?’ this paper responds to two recent defences of African philosophy of education which endorse its communitarianism and oppose individualism in Western philosophy of education. After outlining Thaddeus Metz's argument that Western philosophy of education should become more African by being more communitarian, and Yusef Waghid's defence of communitarianism in African philosophy…
Biocentrism, Ecocentrism, and African Modal Relationalism: Etieyibo, Metz, and Galgut on Animals and African Ethics
In this brief reply to the essays by Edwin Etieyibo (2017), Thad Metz (2017), and Elisa Galgut (2017), I argue (a) that African morality is neither biocentric nor ecocentric in the sense of accepting that “there is no significant moral difference between animal and human slaughter and rituals,” and (b) that African modal relationalism is problematic in both its empirical assumptions and its normative counsel. I concede that anthropocentrism, whet…
Animals and African Ethics
African ethics is primarily concerned with community and harmonious communal relationships. The claim is frequently made on behalf of African moral beliefs and customs that, in stark contrast with Western moral attitudes and practices, there is no comparable objectification and exploitation of other-than-human animals and nature. This article investigates whether this claim is correct by examining the status of animals in religious and philosophi…
Inclusive education and Barrierefreiheit: Some social-epistemological considerations
Barrierefreiheit is a key term in the German inclusion movement, in education and more generally. Sometimes translated as ‘accessibility’, it refers not just to absence of barriers but to freedom from barriers, which in turn indicates a significant social and ethical component. It signals an active, conscious intervention by agents, a consequence of agentic commitment towards crossing borders and overcoming boundaries. In this regard, this articl…
FactsMustFall’? – education in a post-truth, post-truthful world
Taking its inspiration from the name of the recent ‘#FeesMustFall’ movement on South African university campuses, this paper takes stock of the apparent disrepute into which truth, facts and also rationality have fallen in recent times. In the post-truth world, the blurring of borders between truth and deception, truthfulness and dishonesty, and non-fiction and fiction has become a habit – and also an educational challenge. I argue that truth mat…
Animal Rights Education
African communalism, persons, and the case of non-human animals
“I am because we are, and since we are, therefore I am”, generally regarded as the guiding principle of African humanism, expresses the view that a person is a person through other persons and is closely associated but not identical with African communitarianism, or communalism. Against Ifeanyi Menkiti’s “unrestricted or radical or excessive communitarianism” Kwame Gyekye has proposed a “restricted or moderate communitarianism”. Whereas personhoo…
Philosophische Bildung und Didaktik: Dimensionen, Vermittlungen, Perspektiven
Besonders in den letzten Jahren ist auf die Begriffe der epistemologischen Vielfalt und der unterschiedlichen Epistemologien zunehmend Aufmerksamkeit gelenkt worden. Kritisch betrachtet bedeutet “epistemologische Vielfalt” allerdings weder eine Vielzahl von Wahrheiten noch eine “Alles-ist-erlaubt”-Auffassung von Rechtfertigung und Wissen, sondern die an gewisse soziale und geografische Orte geknüpften unterschiedlichen Erfahrungen, bzw. die versc…
Non‐Human Animals and Educational Policy: Philosophical Post‐humanism, Critical Pedagogy, and Ecopedagogy1
Questions about the conscious, conative and cognitive life, as well as the status and treatment of other-than-animals have been receiving systematic consideration by philosophers for close to fifty years. It is all the more puzzling, then, that it is only in recent years that these issues have been addressed by educational philosophers and scholars of moral education, the focus being mainly on the eating of animals. This essay examines some of th…
Epistemologische Vielfalt‘ und Global Citizenship Education
Three broad kinds of orientation can be identified with regard to (global) citizenship education, or (G)CE: cosmopolitanism, localism, and relationalism.They differ in their respective approaches not only to cultural transmission and instruction but also to knowledge and knowledge production.My aim in this paper is to interrogate the notion of local or indigenous knowledge in (G)CE research and to investigate whether the postcolonial idea of epis…
Animal advocacy, fear and loathing in academia: A response to Helena Pedersen
Helena Pedersen’s powerful keynote address poses the question: What prevents education from becoming a transformative force in times of ‘omnicide’, that is, ‘the annihilation of everything’? She locates at least part of the response in ‘institutional anxiety’, which constitutes a (social-) psychological barrier to radical change. In particular, she discusses anxiety related to the moral standing of non-human animals as a threat to human exception…
Introduction: Education, the environment and sustainability
The 17th Biennial INPE Meeting was scheduled to take place from 28 to 31 July 2020 at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México. Of course, there is something ironic about convening a conference on the environment and sustainability that would require presenters to utilize unsustainable modes of transport in order to participate. As it turned out, because of the outbreak and rapid global spread of a new Corona virus, the conference was cancelle…
Sociology (24 works) · Philosophy (23 works) · Epistemology (20 works) · Political science (20 works) · Law (18 works) · Philosophy (15 works) · Environmental ethics (13 works) · Law (13 works) · African cultural and philosophical studies (12 works) · Politics (10 works)