Generalising a single Bantu tradition into ‘African philosophy’ fails on linguistic and cultural grounds

Evidence

Since the Bantu belong to the sub-Saharan Africans along the equator, and they include various clans and tribes having a common tradition, Tempels may not have been able to successfully generalise his vision for extending the Bantu philosophy to African Philosophy tout court. … First of all, the work, which first appeared in Dutch, was translated into French with the title of La Philosophie Bantoue and published by A. Robbens in Congo in 1945. At this early stage the problem of language already occurs, and philosophical Bantu terms may not have transmitted the same content or meaning when expressed in other languages. — Frans Dokman, Beyond Bantu Philosophy_…, 210

Categorization

• XREF: Echoes the reading of Placide Tempels’ reception among Bantu philosophers and the wider question of whether one ethnic tradition can stand for a continental philosophy. — connects to: Pidgin languages embody Relation negatively by belonging to no single tradition — Édouard Glissant, Poetics of Relation, 477