Treating African and Western as historical rather than geographical categories reveals shared philosophical ground.

Evidence

Nowadays, Bantu Philosophy might have been introduced as a way of thinking that African and Western are not geographical but historical categories, a reference to ways of thinking that transcend geographical divisions. Like people, philosophies interact with each other. The shared philosophical common grounds and connections are far more fundamental then cultural and geographical differences. For example, the concepts of life force and vital force are not exclusively African, and the epistemological perceptions are not just Western. Tempels refers, somewhat, to Scholastic philosophy three times but misses the opportunity to make a strong connection between the Bantu and Western vitalistic and epistemological concepts. This lacuna had a long influence on the status of African intellectualism and contributed to a conflict of philosophies. — Frans Dokman, Beyond Bantu Philosophy_…, 1033

Categorization

• DEFINE: Introduces the key reframing of ‘African’ and ‘Western’ as historical rather than geographic categories — a central move in the book’s argument.
• XREF: The vital force / life force parallel with Western vitalism (Bergson, Scholasticism) echoes the book’s earlier chapters on Tempels’s own Scholastic borrowings. — connects to: Hegelian thought framed Africa as outside history to justify colonial supremacy. — Tavengwa Gwekwerere, Davie E. Mutasa, and Kudakwashe Chitofiri, Settlers, Rhodesians, and Supremacists:…, 37