Western and Bantu philosophies differ in static versus dynamic conceptions of being.

Evidence

We from the Western society can conceive the transcendental notion of “being” by separating it from its attribute, “Force”, but the Bantu cannot. “Force” in his thought is a necessary element in “being”, and the concept “force” is inseparable from the definition of “being”. There is no idea among Bantu of “being” divorced from the idea of “force”. Without the element “force”, “being” cannot be conceived. We hold a static conception of “being”, they a dynamic one. What has been said above should be accepted as the basis of Bantu ontology: in particular, the concept of “force” is bound to the concept “being” even in the most abstract thinking upon the notion of being. At last it must be said that the Bantu have a double concept concerning being, a concept which can be expressed: “being is that which has force”. But I think we must go farther. Our statement of Bantu philosophy should adhere as closely as possible to its distinctive characteristics. It seems to me that we shall not attain this precision by formulating the notion of being in Bantu thought as “being is that which possesses force”. I believe that we should most faithfully render the Bantu thought in European language by saying that Bantu speak, act, and live as if, for them, beings were forces. Force is not for them an adventitious, accidental reality. Force is even more than a necessary attribute of beings: Force is the nature of Being, Force is Being, Being is Force. — Frans Dokman, Beyond Bantu Philosophy_…, 200

Categorization

• DEFINE: The core Tempels thesis: for the Bantu, force is not an attribute but the very nature of being — ‘being is that which has force.’
• XREF: Connects to earlier chapters establishing Vitalogy as the African doctrine of life as principle, opposed to Western Ontology as doctrine of being as principle.
• DEEPTHINKING: The claim that Westerners can separate being from force but Bantu cannot — and that force is not merely a necessary attribute but the nature of Being itself — is a genuinely paradigm-shifting ontological distinction worth sitting with.