Mbiti articulates African ontology in five ordered categories from God down to objects
Evidence
This African ontology was articulated in the following five categories: 1 God as the ultimate explanation of the genesis and survival of both man and all things. 2 Spirit beings (made up of extra-human beings and the spirits of men who died a long time ago). 3 Man (including human beings who are alive and those about to be born). 4 Animals and plants, or the remainder of biological life. 5 Phenomena and objects without biological life. — Frans Dokman, Beyond Bantu Philosophy_…, 262
Categorization
Category: Definitional Content
- DEFINE: Defines the five-category structure of Mbiti’s African ontology.
- XREF: This five-fold hierarchy directly parallels Tempels’s Bantu ontology of forces and Kagame’s categories, the core subject of this book.
Related
- Bantu ontology is grounded in vital force rather than Being (similarity 0.85)
- Bantu vital forces form a hierarchy from God down through ancestors to animals (similarity 0.80)
- Bantu ontology is holistic and unified through vital force, transcending Western dualisms (similarity 0.79)
- Mbiti proposed African time as the key concept for understanding African religion (similarity 0.78)
- Western ontology and African vitalogy can engage in reciprocal dialogue (similarity 0.78)
Broader Connections
- Tempels constructed Bantu philosophy through linguistic analysis of Bantu languages
#corroborates(0.40) — Frans Dokman, Beyond Bantu Philosophy_…, 811