UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH AFRICA
College of Human Sciences – Department of Philosophy, Practical and Systematic Theology
⋄ ⋄ ⋄ ⋄ ⋄ ⋄ ⋄ ⋄ ⋄⋄
PLS1502: Introduction to African Philosophy
Assignment 2 | Semester 2, 2026
⋄ ⋄ ⋄ ⋄ ⋄ ⋄ ⋄ ⋄ ⋄⋄
PLS1502
Module Code:
Introduction to African Philosophy
Module Name:
Assignment 2
Assignment:
Semester 2, 2026
Semester:
Gyekye’s Moderate Communitarianism and
Question 1:
Freedom of Speech
Oruka on Philosophic Sagacity and Ethnophi-
Question 2:
losophy
Submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for PLS1502, UNISA 2026
, UNISA | PLS1502 Introduction to African Philosophy
Question 1: Gyekye’s Moderate Communitarianism and Freedom of Speech in South
Africa
Communitarian thought in African philosophy asks how far the community may legitimately shape,
limit, or override the choices of the individual who belongs to it. Kwame Gyekye’s moderate com-
munitarianism and Ifeanyi Menkiti’s radical communitarianism offer different answers, with very
different implications for how much room a right such as freedom of speech should occupy in a
communal society. This essay explains both positions, applies them to a South African social-
media example, and argues that Gyekye’s framework, unlike Menkiti’s, can protect freedom of
speech in the South African constitutional context while still taking communal life seriously.
1.1 Menkiti’s Radical Communitarianism
Menkiti argues that the community is ontologically prior to the individual: a human being is not
born a person but becomes one gradually, through incorporation into the community and the per-
formance of the duties, rites, and roles it assigns (Menkiti, 1984:171–172). African thought, on
his account, defines a person by reference to the surrounding community, so the communal world
takes precedence over any individual life history (Menkiti, 1984:171). Personhood is conferred by
the community once the individual fulfils socially defined obligations, so identity itself is relational
to communal norms rather than possessed independently (Masaka, 2018:3). Because the commu-
nity both confers personhood and defines acceptable conduct, an individual’s freedoms, including
the freedom to speak, exist only within the boundaries the community sets and can be withdrawn
when the community judges them a threat to its cohesion or authority. Critics summarise this as a
position in which the interests of the community take precedence whenever they conflict with those
of the individual, the community-primacy thesis (Famakinwa, 2010:153).
1.2 Gyekye’s Moderate Communitarianism
Writing directly against Menkiti in Person and Community in African Thought (pp. 297–312),
Gyekye accepts that persons are social beings embedded in relationships of interdependence,
but rejects the claim that the community may morally override the individual without limit. He main-
tains that a person is inherently communal, yet also possesses inherent characteristics such as
freedom, and insists that the community and the individual must be given equal moral standing
(Gyekye, 2003:299). This is his principle of equiprimordiality: the individual is neither swallowed
by the community nor wholly separate from it; both have legitimate, simultaneous claims (Gyekye,
Page 2 of 8
College of Human Sciences – Department of Philosophy, Practical and Systematic Theology
⋄ ⋄ ⋄ ⋄ ⋄ ⋄ ⋄ ⋄ ⋄⋄
PLS1502: Introduction to African Philosophy
Assignment 2 | Semester 2, 2026
⋄ ⋄ ⋄ ⋄ ⋄ ⋄ ⋄ ⋄ ⋄⋄
PLS1502
Module Code:
Introduction to African Philosophy
Module Name:
Assignment 2
Assignment:
Semester 2, 2026
Semester:
Gyekye’s Moderate Communitarianism and
Question 1:
Freedom of Speech
Oruka on Philosophic Sagacity and Ethnophi-
Question 2:
losophy
Submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for PLS1502, UNISA 2026
, UNISA | PLS1502 Introduction to African Philosophy
Question 1: Gyekye’s Moderate Communitarianism and Freedom of Speech in South
Africa
Communitarian thought in African philosophy asks how far the community may legitimately shape,
limit, or override the choices of the individual who belongs to it. Kwame Gyekye’s moderate com-
munitarianism and Ifeanyi Menkiti’s radical communitarianism offer different answers, with very
different implications for how much room a right such as freedom of speech should occupy in a
communal society. This essay explains both positions, applies them to a South African social-
media example, and argues that Gyekye’s framework, unlike Menkiti’s, can protect freedom of
speech in the South African constitutional context while still taking communal life seriously.
1.1 Menkiti’s Radical Communitarianism
Menkiti argues that the community is ontologically prior to the individual: a human being is not
born a person but becomes one gradually, through incorporation into the community and the per-
formance of the duties, rites, and roles it assigns (Menkiti, 1984:171–172). African thought, on
his account, defines a person by reference to the surrounding community, so the communal world
takes precedence over any individual life history (Menkiti, 1984:171). Personhood is conferred by
the community once the individual fulfils socially defined obligations, so identity itself is relational
to communal norms rather than possessed independently (Masaka, 2018:3). Because the commu-
nity both confers personhood and defines acceptable conduct, an individual’s freedoms, including
the freedom to speak, exist only within the boundaries the community sets and can be withdrawn
when the community judges them a threat to its cohesion or authority. Critics summarise this as a
position in which the interests of the community take precedence whenever they conflict with those
of the individual, the community-primacy thesis (Famakinwa, 2010:153).
1.2 Gyekye’s Moderate Communitarianism
Writing directly against Menkiti in Person and Community in African Thought (pp. 297–312),
Gyekye accepts that persons are social beings embedded in relationships of interdependence,
but rejects the claim that the community may morally override the individual without limit. He main-
tains that a person is inherently communal, yet also possesses inherent characteristics such as
freedom, and insists that the community and the individual must be given equal moral standing
(Gyekye, 2003:299). This is his principle of equiprimordiality: the individual is neither swallowed
by the community nor wholly separate from it; both have legitimate, simultaneous claims (Gyekye,
Page 2 of 8
