We’re not really going to discuss René Descartes, but consider for a second his famous Enlightenment formulation Cogito, ergo sum—the aforementioned “I think, therefore I am”—which, again, is one of the very foundations of Western thought. When we place it next to this ubuntu formulation—“I am, because we are”—well, man oh man, that’s a pretty big difference. Descartes saw his own singular consciousness as proof of existence. Practitioners of ubuntu see our existence as conditional on others’ existence. Someone could write a very interesting book on the sorts of civilizations and laws and
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