Tempels’s ontology mirrors the colonial socio-economic hierarchy onto the Bantu

Evidence

Similar to Crahay, Eboussi-Boulaga argues that Tempels’s hypothesis in Bantu ontology is not only ambiguous but, in the end, downgrades the muntu8 to the uncivilized, with no moral qualities and completely governed by an order of forces (Eboussi-Boulaga, 1968, pp. 19–20). Eboussi-Boulaga also presents the socio-historical contradictions of Tempels’s treatise when he likens the socio-economic hierarchy in the colonial context to the ontological hierarchy of the forces. — Frans Dokman, Beyond Bantu Philosophy_…, 544

Categorization

• XREF: Eboussi-Boulaga’s mapping of colonial hierarchy onto ontological hierarchy resonates with the critique in ‘The Reluctant Fundamentalist’ of how Western frameworks reduce non-Western Others. — connects to: the MOC “The Tongue of Power: When Language Becomes the Battlefield of Empire”