Tempels’ Bantu Philosophy remains seminal to African philosophy despite its missionary origins

Evidence

To claim that philosophy is culturally neutral is not true. For this reason the introduction of Western culture into another culture is always a brutal penetration. It would be very difficult, and intellectually dishonest, to deny the seminal importance of Bantu Philosophy and its conceptual contributions to systematic African philosophy. In many respects Tempels remains one of the pillars and pinnacles of African philosophy, and I think it is necessary to acknowledge the enormous influence his book has had, directly or indirectly, on the orientation of African philosophy. — Frans Dokman, Beyond Bantu Philosophy_…, 488

Categorization

• SEED: Article angle: a Belgian missionary colonizer remains ‘a pillar’ of the very African philosophical tradition that rejected colonial epistemology — the productive tension of a founding text authored by the colonizer.