A Review Article of Beyond Bantu Philosophy. Contextualizing Placide Tempels’ Initiative in African Thought (Dokman and Cornelli eds.) and La Philosophie bantoue du Père Placide Tempels. Relecture diversiforme (Kasongo, Mbayo, Kabamba, eds.)
Bantu Philosophy, written by the Flemish-Belgian Franciscan Placide Tempels in the early 1940s, has been the source of long-standing debates. Quite early the work was criticized as part and parcel of the colonial project by Aimé Césaire and Frantz Fanon, yet it was also hailed as truthful expression of the deep structure of Black culture by thinkers such as Alioune Diop and Léopold Sédar Senghor. Debates inspired by such different readings have persisted over the years and, judging by two recent volumes dedicated to the book, are still very much alive. These volumes, one in French written by Congolese scholars connected to the Catholic Church and the other in English by African, European, and American scholars who write from a secular perspective, give a good overview of the widely differing readings of Bantu Philosophy today. Discussing the contributions in these volumes, this article will provide an update on the heritage of Tempels’s book. Is it still seen by critics as only a colonial work, or treated as a philosophical source?
Bantu Philosophy engages the philosophical foundations of modes of thinking as well as practical organization of life in Bantu-language communities. It describes the logically consistent system of thought that Tempels understood to be effective among the peoples he lived with as a missionary, mainly the Baluba and Bemba in Congo (now DRC). The research presented in the book is based on thorough conversations Tempels had with knowledgeable members of those peoples. In the Dutch original, Tempels mentions a black fellow priest who teaches him on the right interpretation of the concept muntu as person (instead of human being). In the Congolese volume here reviewed Maman Lenge, the grandmother of professor Mbuya Mukombo, is mentioned as the one who taught Tempels on Baluba wisdom: “their relations to things, people and God” (Kasongo et al 210). His sources thus were indigenous sages as well as university-trained Africans. This information cannot be found in the standing English translation of Bantu Philosophy, where the studied priest is changed into “a Bantu,” and Tempels didn’t mention the female sage. Translation issues in the existing editions of Bantu Philosophy such as the one just mentioned may explain some aspects of the often harsh condemnations of Tempels. Pascah Mungini describes him, for instance, as “an unwanted [guest]” in African philosophy (Dokman et al 52).
Despite the abundance of negative assessments of Bantu Philosophy and its author in Francophone as well as Anglophone African philosophy, there is also a general acknowledgment that the book incited much of the reflections and inquiries undertaken by African philosophers of their discipline. The focus seems to be on such reflections and inquiries in the English title, which aims to go “beyond Bantu Philosophy” and contextualize “Placide Tempels’s Initiative in African Thought.” This book does not contain much close reading of the text, or even extensive quotations of it. Instead we find here a rich collection of reactions to Bantu Philosophy, as well as work inspired by it. The French title has a different starting point, as it was published on the occasion of the centenary celebration of the diocese of Kamina, founded in 1922 by Franciscans. It stands in the tradition of Congolese Catholic philosophy and theology. The flap text indicates that Bantu philosophy is treated in this volume as “rooted in the wisdom of the Luba Shankadi.” Here confidence is reflected in the continuity between indigenous knowledge, its interpretation by a missionary such as Tempels, and present-day interpretations of it as “negro-African philosophy.” The idea promoted in Bantu Philosophy that there is a specific African philosophy that, despite differences, is generally shared among black African cultures, apparently forms the accepted starting point of the contributions to the French volume, a view that is contested by some of the authors of the English volume. Both books share the view that it is worthwhile to revisit Tempels’s book to further develop African philosophical work that is relevant for today.
Beyond Bantu Philosophy consists of four parts, of which the first—which features two chapters (by Evaristi Magoto Cornelli and Martin Nkafu Nkemkia) on Tempels’s life, work, and spirituality—is the most sober in interpretation. The second part, with chapters by Pascah Mungwini and Bernard Matolino, is mostly critical toward Bantu Philosophy, whereas the authors of the third part, Pius Mosima and Mutombo Nkulu-N’Sengha let themselves be inspired by Tempels’s work to develop intercultural and dialogical approaches for African Philosophy. The final and fourth part includes ”special topics” related to Bantu Philosophy, investigating its potential for management sciences (Frans Dokman) and for theorizing the role of women in pre-colonial African societies (Dudziro Nhengu). The book closes with an epilogue by editor Dokman, who asks if Tempels’s work brings African and Western philosophy closer or into conflict. Bernard Matolino and Pascal Mungwini seem to agree in the observation that the only value of the book exists in “the amount of provocation that the little book by Tempels triggered” (Dokman et al 51). South African philosopher Matolino adds to this that Tempels should be held responsible for the “bantustanization” of African philosophy, assigning it a place on the outside of the global philosophical discourse, in a corner of ethnological interest mostly, and even then faulty. They both recapitulate the most critical views of Bantu Philosophy, notably those of Paulin Hountondji who allocated Tempels to a field he called “ethnophilosophy,” which provided him with the opportunity to defend universal philosophy as the only true philosophy, being the philosophy that was written down, individual, and critical.
Matolino makes a significant remark with respect to the issue of language, when he explains the difficulty that most Anglophone African philosophers do not know French or Portuguese, nor feel any temptation to learn “another colonial language” (Dokman et al 65). The problem consists especially, as he points out, in the fact that much of the other work by Tempels is only available in French, to which we should add that some is written in Swahili and, naturally, in Dutch. This problem of availability of the whole oeuvre of Tempels has indeed hampered a thorough study of Bantu Philosophy as a classic text, as have the differences between its translations in French and English, which both have changed the work to take on a more racist and colonial tone than the Dutch original, as pointed out already in an article by Willem Storm in 1993 and in the dissertation of Henk Haenen of 2006. Some of the authors in Beyond Bantu Philosophy are scholarly bilingual. Mutombo Nkulu N’Sengha and Pius Mosima especially, being of Cameroonian and Congolese origin, discuss Tempels literature from Francophone and Anglophone origins. Their chapters also show a different approach to Bantu Philosophy, reading it not as a work that is closing in all of African philosophy in an ethnic ghetto, as Matolino fears, but as a source for intercultural or dialogical philosophy.
Nkulu N’Sengha reads Bantu Philosophy in the context of the other projects for which Tempels is known, notably his founding of a lay Catholic movement, Jamaa (meaning “family”), based on a theology of dialogue and encounter. He values Tempels as a critic of the “Hegelian paradigm,” which projected timelessness and racial hierarchy on Africans and African cultures, whereas “Tempels attempted a different reading of Africa inspired by his study of Kiluba language and the African culture of the people among whom he lived for many years.” This different reading he terms the “Bumuntu Paradigm” (Dokman et al 105). Bumuntu indicates the moral character, “the essence of a deeply human being.” Thus Nkulu N’Sengha is able to access the moral, spiritual, and social values that form the material content of the vital energy or ”vital force,” as the Dutch concept “levenskracht” was traditionally translated (Dokman et al 106). He also notes that Tempels’s attempt at intercultural dialogue is contested among his later readers. His own interpretation of it as “a remarkable chapter in the history of […] intercultural dialogue in colonial and post-colonial Africa” (Dokman et al 126) is based on a transdisciplinary valuation of Tempels’s life and work, which again is founded on the extensive study of Tempels scholarship of philosophers, ethnologists, theologians and linguists in several languages, as well as his published and unpublished works and letters, which are still available in the archives of several missionary orders (Dokman et al 109).
The other valuation of Tempels’s meaning for intercultural dialogue, by Pius Mosima, brings us back again to disciplinary philosophy. Elaborating on chapters in his 2016 dissertation on Philosophic Sagacity, Mosima painstakingly describes the debates on Bantu Philosophy by African(a) philosophers, especially those that revolve on the characterization of Bantu Philosophy as “ethnophilosophy”—a hybrid discipline which was either positively or negatively valued. In his critical review of a not-complete, but very wide collection of philosophical responses to the book, Mosima reads the book, just like Nkulu-N’Sengha, in the context of the life of the man Tempels. He stresses the struggles Tempels went through when he transformed from a missionary teacher to a student of indigenous African religion and philosophy. His main contribution, according to Mosima, consists in breaking “the barrier between the professional philosophers and indigenous African peoples” (Dokman et al 100-101). He criticizes Oruka’s view that Tempels made African indigenous philosophy into ethnophilosophy, which “is more mythology and ethnology than philosophy proper” (Dokman et al 95). In contrast, Mosima himself posits that “If properly approached, as Tempels tried to do, the insight myths give is profound, not superficial, and it is a royal road to transcultural understanding” (Dokman et al 96).
The French volume consists of several historical and contextual chapters that mainly deal with Tempels’s missionary and religious legacy, which is also traced back in part to his Bantu Philosophy. Olivier Nkulu Kabamba relates Tempels to the history of the diocese; Felix Wiseman describes his life. Charles Kantenga Kasongo and Euphrasie Seya Kampinga focus on the encounters and the dialogue that was established between Tempels and “the Muntu,” whereas Olivier Nkulu Kabamba and Delphin Kibamba Mbayo investigate the worldview and philosophy of wisdom and personhood as central to Tempels’s influence in the Congolese church. Jean-Marie Vianney Mwenze Kemukwa and again Delphin Kibamba Mbayo dig further into the philosophy of personhood and Bantu philosophy in general as it was influenced and did influence evangelization. The book is concluded by a chapter by Kaobo Amisi, that investigates the relation between evangelization and colonization. After a historical overview of the Belgian colonial exploits in Congo, this last chapter critically discusses Tempels’s endeavor to negotiate the colonial prejudice against Africans and his sympathy for them by recognizing their philosophical contribution to humanity. All the same, the effort remains dominated by the overwhelming structures of European White supremacy, as it addresses basically not the Bantu people themselves, but the missionaries and colonials that Tempels tries to win over to a more humane system of education and evangelization, with respect to Bantu knowledge and custom. Amisi also treats discussions on Bantu Philosophy and evangelization after the political decolonization process. Identifying the problems of inculturation that go hand in hand with the spread of Christianity during and after colonialism, he notes the “profound traumatism that colonialism has left in the African soul” (Kasongo et al 277). Advocating to counter this with a “calm gaze” he concludes by repeating what Tempels wrote in his final chapter of Bantu Philosophy: that “Bantu paganism, the ancient wisdom of Bantu life […] aspired from the depth of the Bantu soul to the spirit of Christian spirituality” (Kasongo et al 277).
Dieudonné Ilunga Makonga adds to the book by combining Catholic philosophical ideas on the dignity of the human person and the study of customs of the “Muluba Shankadi,” offering Tempels as a key figure to critically address the human crisis created by industrialization and “technoscience,” being the one who brought the value system of the Luba of Katanga to the world at large. This chapter analyzes the effects on the destruction of African culture by the colonial efforts to civilize from the standpoint of a critical development of catholic moral teaching. It condemns the idea of “minor evil” which tends to condone unspeakable cruelties in the name of a certain good (“civilization”) and advocates to focus on the “minor good” that the so-called “civilizers” should have identified in the African person and its culture. “Here we find the entire meaning of what has failed in the new civilizers over against the Muntu” (Kasongo et al 241). Similar to others in this volume, notably Amisi, Makonga tries to focus on what can be distilled from Christian moral philosophy to move forward and overcome the immense trauma that was caused by colonialism.
The most interesting philosophical revisit of Tempels’s philosophy is found in the chapter by Patrick Monga-Kasimba, who zooms in on a specific aspect of the ontology described in Bantu Philosophy: the hierarchy of being. This chapter takes Tempels’s words that his work is not more than a hypothesis, to be corrected by further research into Bantu cultures, as an invitation to do just that. Positioning his work among that of Goma Binda and Cheikh Anta Diop, it takes an Afrocentric point of departure, bringing his analysis of ancient African philosophical knowledge in dialogue with modern global philosophy. He confirms the correctness of Tempels’s acknowledgment that “The whole of negro-African reality is relational” (Kasongo et al 197) but criticizes his explanation of the nature of the relational web as a hierarchical system, moving from God at the top to deified founders of human cultures, to ancestors, to living human beings and the unborn, to descending further to animals, plants and the mineral world.
Monga-Kasimba delves into Luba language and customs, as well as into the European philosophical thought that formed Tempels, to arrive at the constatation that the author of Bantu Philosophy was right in his characterization of vital force as the central notion in Bantu ontology. “One can confirm that the ways of life of the Baluba Shankadi are centered toward the idea of vital energy” (Kasongo et al 207). He notes, however, that where European thought tends to see the universe as a complete whole, and God outside of this whole as the creator or sustainer, “in African thought, the universe is ’tem,’ a totality, that is a reality that designates the origin of all things” (Kasongo et al 207), a relational totality that is alive. From ancient (KMT) Egyptian thought to the Baluba Shankadi, all African philosophical and religious thought includes God in the world, as the immanent energizer of all there is. Monga-Kasimba uses the philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead to clarify the consequences of this view: that reality is “becoming” (Kasongo et al 215). Understanding reality as a living and becoming whole also means that “hierarchy” is not the most fundamental concept to describe its relationality. The Baluba understood that “relations are not simply hierarchical, going from the higher to the lower, but reciprocal, circular, direct and indirect” (Kasongo et al 217–218).
I have described this chapter by Monga-Kasimba more extensively because, tucked away as it is toward the end of a book that itself could easily have gone unnoticed in the Anglophone philosophical world, we find in it an original contribution to the further development of what could be named, although always reservedly, Bantu philosophy. The reservation relates of course to the problem to identify any culture as a specific, bounded, whole, determined by its position in time or place. The diverse thinkers, theologians and philosophers, who contributed to these books, provide valuable food for thought to move through the imaginary or real boundaries of time and place, to struggle through the colonial heritage as it is embodied in the work of Tempels and the reactions it has conjured up. In so doing they also provide interesting new sources to philosophize in this arguably post-colonial age.
Angela Roothaan
Angela Roothaan is an Associate Professor in Philosophy at the Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. Her research focuses on African and Intercultural Philosophy, Indigenous Epistemologies and Philosophy of Nature. She is the initiator of the Bantu Philosophy Project and chair of the Research Group African Intercultural Philosophy of the Dutch Research School of Philosophy. Her recent publications include Indigenous, Modern and Postcolonial Relations to Nature. Negotiating the Environment (Routledge, 2019); Well-Being in African Philosophy, Insights for a Global Ethics of Development (Rowman & Littlefield, 2023), edited with Bolaji Bateye, Mahmoud Masaeli, Louise Müller; and Beauty in African Thought: Critical Perspectives on the Western Idea of Development (Rowman & Littlefield, 2023), edited with with Bolaji Bateye, Mahmoud Masaeli, Louise Müller. She also recently published a new edition with introduction of the original Dutch version of Bantoe-filosofie, in modernized Dutch (Uitgeverij Noordboek, 2023).
