In this section of IFK's website we want to publish texts about intercultural philosophy in general, and about African philosophy in particular. Our aim is to provide the interested reader, especially students of philosophy, with texts which are of general importance for intercultural philosophy or which have been written or edited in connection with IFK. Another special focus is the interactive relation between intercultural philosophy and art.

Texts in written in Dutch and German, have their own sections at this site.

Text 1 is the introduction to the book: Heinz Kimmerle/Henk Oosterling (eds), Sensus communis in Multi- and Intercultural Perspective. On the Possibility of Common Judgments in Arts and Politics (Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann 1999). This text has a key function for the presentation of texts and of research in this section. Other contributions to this book are also of general importance and will be presented, too. Large portions of the text collection under the name

Sensus communis
Clarification of a Kantian Concept on the Way to an Intercultural Dialogue
Between Western and Indian Thought
Antoon Van den Braembussche, Rotterdam

Sensus communis and Modernity as a Common Horizon
A Contribution to the Theory of Intercultural Communication
Gerrit Steunebrink, Nijmegen

The Japanese ‘Art Way’ (dô)
Sensus communis in the Context of the Question of a Non-Western
Concept of Modernity
Ryosuke Ohashi, Kyoto

A Culture of the ‘Inter’
Japanese Notions of ma and basho
Henk Oosterling, Rotterdam

Sensus communis in Afrikan Political and Moral Thought
An Akan Perspective
Kwame Gyekye, Legon (Ghana)

‘Uche Ora’: An Igbo View on Sensus communis
Frank U. Uyanne, Awka (Nigeria) and Rotterdam

Islam and Global Dialogue
Yasin Ceylan, Ankara

Absence in Common
Towards a Post-modern Notion of Sensus communis
Tom Dommisse, Amsterdam

The Poetic Community: Kant After Rorty
Sybrandt van Keulen, Amsterdam

A Literary Community Possessed by Death
About Maurice Blanchot and Marguerite Duras
Cornée Jacobs, Rotterdam

Text 2 gives a philosophical analysis of the actual situation in Africa and tries to make visible its positive aspects.

Text 3 is a short methodological consideration about intercultural dialogues.

Texts 4-6 present reviews of books on African philosophy which are not adequately recognized , but deserve to be studied carefully. These books are written by Mogobe B. Ramose (South Africa), Kwame Gyekye (Ghana), and Ulrich Lölke (Germany).

Text 4 is the review of a recently published book on African philosophy which presents itself as a new approach to this subject.

Text 5: The review of two recent books of Kwame Gyekye has been written 1998 for 'Quest. An International African Journal of Philosophy'. The text is presented here because after volume XII, 1998, there has not been published a following issue of this journal.

Text 6: The book of Ulrich Lölke: 'Kritische Traditionen' refers multifariously to the books of Gyekye, which are mentioned here above. The review is written for the journal 'African Philosophy'.

In 'The virtual sage' the way sages work in traditional African communities, their societal function and their use of African proverbs are explained. highlights the work which sages are doing in traditional African communities, what their social function is and how they use proverbs as some kind of oracle. There are proverbs given which might be helpful to clarify the personal position of the reader. They function in some way like a 'virtual sage'.

We highly appreciate Dr. M. Hofmeyr from Venda University in South-Africa sending us an excerpt from his soon to be published book 'Difference and Oppression':'Black Artist, White Critic' by Jean-Marie Dederen. He concentrates on problems of intercultural art

In continuation about political topics in intercultural philosophy, we want to make a few exerpts from H. Kimmerle/F.M. Wimmer (Eds), Philosophy and Democracy in Intercultural Perspective. Philosophie et dämocratie en perspective interculturelle. Amsterdam/Atlanta, GA: Editions Rodopi 1997 (Studies in Intercultural Philosophy. Vol. 3) available on the internet: Culture, Nationalism and Philosophy by Sophie B. Oluwole, The Philosophical Text in the African Oral Tradition by Heinz Kimmerle, The Need for Conceptual Decolonization in African Philosophy by Kwasi Wiredu and Jürgen Hengelbrock, Bochum : The Relationship between African and European Philosophers.

Close Encounter dedicated to the philosophy of Heinz Kimmerle

During the Annual Conference of the International Association for Philosophy and Literature, which has been organized from June 3-8, 2002, at Erasmus University Rotterdam by Henk Oosterling, four so called Close encounter-sessions have taken place. One of them was devoted to the work of Heinz Kimmerle. The title of this session was: The stranger between oppression and superiority. Organizer and chairman of the session was Jan Hoogland from the Technical University Twente at Enschede. As participants for a close encounter with Heinz Kimmerle came to Rotterdam: Jürgen Hengelbrock from the Ruhr-University Bochum, Mogobe Ramose from the University of South Africa at Pretoria, Elisabeth de Schipper from Erasmus University Rotterdam, Heinz Paetzold from the University of Kassel and the University of Applied Sciences at Hamburg, and Murray Hofmeyr from the University of Venda at Thohoyandou (SA).

The stranger between oppression and superiority

Heinz Kimmerle - born in Germany in 1930 - has built up an impressive philosophical oeuvre in which his interpretation of philosophers as Schleiermacher, Hegel, Marx, Bloch and Derrida marks the successive highlights, finally resulting in his interest in African philosophy.

The texts written in Dutch concentrate on African philosophy. The texts written in German contain the first chapter of the book by H. Kimmerle: Philosophien der Differenz.'Denken der Differenz als Erschließung eines neuen Gebiets der Philosophie' , 'Entgeistert.
Interkulturelle Philosophie zur Einführung ,Sollen wir Partner im Dialog tolerieren und/oder achten?