Seminar cercetare DFT ‘Placide Tempels’s Metaphysics: A challenge or a trap for African philosophy?’

In this talk, I examine Tempels’s Bantu Philosophy (1945/1959), which identifies Force as the central ontological category of the Bantus such that being is Force. I situate his claims in dialogue with Hountondji’s African Philosophy: Myth and Reality (1976/1983), which critiques ethnophilosophy for imposing external categories and conflating collective beliefs with philosophy. I outline Tempels’s three possible relations: being as distinct from force, force as part of being, and being as force, and note his view that Bantu thought embraces the third, according to which being and force are identical. I analyze whether this framework can allow a genuine philosophical encounter or, as Hountondji argues, it is a colonial construction. I further explore how Force functions methodologically, shaping and being shaped by interpretive frameworks. Revisiting the fundamental question of “What is it?” reveals Force as both an ontological principle and an analytic tool. I conclude by showing how Hountondji’s methodological rigor offers a framework to refine African metaphysical categories for contemporary engagement.