We the People and the Politics of Inclusion (Annual Lecture in the Humanities)

Lecture delivered by Professor Kwame Gyekye, Emeritus Professor of Philosophy, University of Ghana and Scholar-in-Residence, Ashesi University (2010/2011). Delivered on 24 September 2013.

“The words of the preamble of constitutions are emphatic on the centrality of the status of the people in the political order that was expected to be established by these constitutions. The self-referential phrase – We the People – mandates, without a shadow of doubt, a political system that is to be an inclusive system. For, without the politics of inclusion, that self-referential phrase becomes drained of real significance. It is the politics of inclusion, as interpreted in this lecture, that will, beyond representation, give adequate effect to and practical translation of the notion of the constitutional phrase: We the People.”