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Placide Tempels

1906–1977

A first way ina deliberate simplification – the portrait says more

For Tempels, the thought of the Bantu peoples equates being with vital force and ranks all beings by their strength – a view later criticised as ethnophilosophy.

Placement

African & Africana Philosophy · Western Europe · Metaphysics, Religion

Belgian missionary in the Congo whose “Bantu Philosophy” (1945) ascribed to the Baluba an ontology of “vital force” – a starting point of African philosophy and the model case of “ethnophilosophy” for its critics.

Key ideas

  • Being as vital force
  • Ethnophilosophy
  • Colonial paternalism (the critics’ charge)

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Influence

Influenced 1

  • Alexis Kagame

    influenced

    Kagame accepted Tempels’ claim that Bantu peoples have a philosophy but rebuilt it from the Kinyarwanda language instead of a missionary’s impressions (La Philosophie bantu-rwandaise de l’être, 1956). A. Kagame, La Philosophie bantu-rwandaise de l’être (1956); P. Tempels, La Philosophie bantoue (1945)

    Evidence: AI draft

    Alexis Kagame › 1912–1981

Criticism

Criticized by 8

  • Aimé Césaire

    criticised by

    Césaire argued that Tempels praised Bantu philosophy and its ‘vital force’ to leave the colonial order untouched, as a means of pacification (Discours sur le colonialisme, 1950). A. Césaire, Discours sur le colonialisme (1950; rev. 1955); P. Tempels, La philosophie bantoue (1945)

    Evidence: AI draft

    Aimé Césaire › 1913–2008

  • Fabien Eboussi Boulaga

    criticised by

    Eboussi Boulaga argued that the ethnophilosophy begun by Tempels confuses customs with theory and is a rhetoric seeking recognition from European readers (‘Le Bantou problématique’, 1968). F. Eboussi Boulaga, “Le Bantou problématique”, Présence Africaine 66 (1968); La crise du Muntu (1977); N. Ajari, “Née du désastre”, Interpretationes (2015)

    Evidence: AI draft

    Fabien Eboussi Boulaga › 1934–2018

  • V. Y. Mudimbe

    criticised by

    Mudimbe placed Tempels’ Bantu Philosophy in the ‘colonial library’, as part of a missionary project of conversion that describes Africans in Europe’s categories (The Invention of Africa, 1988). V. Y. Mudimbe, The Invention of Africa (1988)

    Evidence: AI draft

    V. Y. Mudimbe › 1941–2025

  • Paulin Hountondji

    criticised by

    Hountondji called Tempels’ Bantu Philosophy (1945) the founding text of ‘ethnophilosophy’: a unanimous worldview ascribed to all Bantu, written for Europeans (Sur la « philosophie africaine », 1976). P. Hountondji, Sur la « philosophie africaine » (1976); P. Tempels, La philosophie bantoue (1945)

    Evidence: AI draft

    Paulin Hountondji › 1942–2024

  • Henry Odera Oruka

    criticised by

    Odera Oruka took Tempels’ Bantu Philosophy as the model of ethnophilosophy, a communal worldview presented as philosophy, unlike the critical thought of individual sages (Sage Philosophy, 1990). H. Odera Oruka, “Four Trends in Current African Philosophy” (1978; publ. 1981); Sage Philosophy (1990), introduction

    Evidence: AI draft

    Henry Odera Oruka › 1944–1995

  • Kwame Anthony Appiah

    criticised by

    Appiah objected that Tempels’ Bantu Philosophy, like ethnophilosophy generally, ascribes one folk philosophy to a whole people as a coherent system (In My Father’s House, 1992). K. A. Appiah, In My Father’s House (1992), ch. 5 “Ethnophilosophy and Its Critics”

    Evidence: AI draft

    Kwame Anthony Appiah › b. 1954

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  • Okot p’Bitek

    criticised by

    Okot p’Bitek counted Tempels’ Bantu Philosophy among the Christian projects of reading African religions in Western terms in order to make Africa fit Christianity. O. p’Bitek, African Religions in Western Scholarship (1970); D. A. Masolo, African Philosophy in Search of Identity (1994)

    Evidence: AI draft

    Okot p’Bitek › 1931–1982

  • Marcien Towa

    criticised by

    Towa rejected the ethnophilosophy begun by Tempels as a description of collective beliefs passed off as philosophy, which leaves traditions unexamined. M. Towa, Essai sur la problématique philosophique dans l’Afrique actuelle (1971); Masolo 1994

    Evidence: AI draft

    Marcien Towa › 1931–2014

Works

  • 1945Bantu Philosophy

    A missionary’s reconstruction of a Bantu ontology of “vital force” – meant to aid the civilising mission, it opened the debate on African philosophy.

Position

Tempels wanted to show missionaries that the Bantu had their own philosophy. At its centre, he claimed, being is vital force. All beings – God, the ancestors, the living, animals, plants and things – form a hierarchy of forces that strengthen or weaken each other. Yet the Bantu, he held, could not state it themselves; the European had to articulate it, so that colonial rule and mission could build on it. Césaire mocked the book as an alibi for colonialism. The Rwandan priest Alexis Kagame reworked the approach through the Kinyarwanda language; Hountondji called such reconstructions of a unanimous collective worldview “ethnophilosophy”, and Mudimbe placed the book in the “colonial library”.

Life & context

Placide Tempels, born in Flanders in 1906, joined the Franciscans and in 1933 went as a missionary to the Belgian Congo, where he worked among the Baluba of Katanga. His book on Bantu philosophy appeared in French in 1945; Présence Africaine reissued it in Paris in 1949. In the 1950s he founded the Catholic movement Jamaa, which church authorities came to view with suspicion. He died in Belgium in 1977.

Further main works

  • Our Encounter (Notre rencontre, 1962)

Appears in

Sources: Wikipedia · Wikidata

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