Johan Degenaar

Johannes Jacobus Degenaar, who lived from 1926 to 2015, was a South African philosopher and emeritus professor at Stellenbosch University, considered one of the most respected and influential philosophers in South Africa. His early work engaged phenomenological-existential philosophy, aesthetics and theology, before he turned to the political and ethical dimensions of South African society and became a notable critic of apartheid ideology, writing on nationalism, liberalism, socialism, pluralistic democracy, ethnicity, violence and the connections between art and society. He began lecturing in philosophy at Stellenbosch in 1949, was appointed professor in 1969, and later led the university's Department of Political Philosophy after institutional conflict over his opposition to apartheid, retiring in 1991 after supervising doctoral students including Paul Cilliers.