Tempels grounded African activity in a life-based ontology, not a Being-based one.

Evidence

Whatever the case, Tempels merits credit, as he pointed out that the African’s activity is guided by an ontology based not on Being, but on life – on the “vital force”. A criteriology – a mentality – is derived from such ontology. It is an ontology emerging from anthropology. The ontology of the vital force. The results are the very soul of Baluba culture and of African man. Tempels identified this “Vital Force” with the “being” of Western philosophy. He affirmed that without this Force, Being cannot be conceived. He retained that, among the Bantu, there is no idea of Being separated from Vital Force. — Frans Dokman, Beyond Bantu Philosophy_…, 227

Categorization

• DEFINE: Recaps Temples’s core thesis: ontology arising from anthropology, vital force as being.